Photo Opportunities
by Rin0rourke
Summary: Caught on film in a rather compromising position Danny and Dash learn that being seen as a couple has its perks with the ladies, until someone starts demanding proof.
1. Discovery

**Danny Phantom**

Photo Opportunities

"Come on, Tucker! Just take the stupid picture all ready!" Sam shouted to him from her place against the tree, her nose never leaving the pages of the thick book she had in her lap, her eyes only glancing up from the text for an instant.

"It has to be just right; otherwise the whole project is pointless and the value goes down," Tucker said behind his small digital camera.

"Why are they even paying for these pictures?" Danny asked, floating around the branches of a nearby tree, gazing into the large yellow eyes of the small feline who had climbed to the tip and now screamed to get down. "There are already so many floating around, why do they need more?"

"They probably got tired of printing the same photos millions of times and need some new material." Sam said.

Danny sighed, gently reaching for the cat. "And why, again, did we decide on cats?" He was more a dog person, really.

"We needed something no one else has. You fight ghosts and save people, sure, but there's also a softer, gentler side of you that needs to be shown." Tucker said, zooming in and snapping the pictures at different frames in time. "Rescuing a cat from a tree is classic, just what you need to win the hearts of the few who still doubt you."

Cradling the dark furred feline Danny slowly started his decent when something hit him from behind, knocking back spinning head over feet smack into the Nasty Burger billboard sign. The cat yowling as it landed, claws first, in Sam's lap, who in turn practically threw her book to try to get the thing off her.

A glowing pink rocket smashed into him again, effectively crashing through the billboard. Yelling his name in unison, Sam and Tucker charged after him but he had already disappeared into the nearby trees, out of their reach.

"I've got you now ghost!" came the feminine shout as Valerie zoomed overhead in the direction he had fallen. His friends wasted no time following her.

Danny crashed through branches and leaves as he plummeted down before he blindly heard a surprised yelp, landing hard on something much softer than the ground. His muscles relaxed as darkness covered his eyes like deep black ink coming in from all directions. He felt the change come unbidden as he lay limply against the object he had landed.

~*~*~

Dash was walking quietly in the park tossing a small stuffed bear up and down in his right hand. He had seen it on the shelf at the market and knew it would be perfect for his collection. Smiling he grabbed it back out of the air and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket.

The park was awfully quiet today, not that he ever really went to the park unless he was playing catch with his friends or his dog, or planned on making out with some chick. He stood in the center of his usual hangout, a nice shaded spot surrounded by low bushes. It was convenient, and very useful in hiding two teenage bodies from the gossiping eyes of the world.

He heard a sound and looked up just as a body tumbled out of the trees onto him, knocking him to the ground. A light flashed just outside his closed eyelids for a moment. Groaning in pain he tried to move, feeling pressure on his torso. Opening his eyes he stared at a head of thick midnight blue hair. He only new one scrawny looser with that kind of ridiculous messy hairstyle, leaning up on his elbows he shifted his gaze .

Sure enough, Danny Fenton.

~*~*~

Danny felt someone shaking his shoulder roughly enough to dislocate it. With a groan he lifted his head, only about an inch or two but it was enough to stop the shaking for a while.

Then it resumed, harsher, and accompanied by a voice.

"Damn it Fenton, you better be alive or I'm gonna kill you." The object he was laying on moved beneath him, he knew it was a body, but whom? He felt himself fall limply against the person, his body not responding to the directions his muddled brain sent.

Fenton…who called him Fenton…

Several parts of his body were throbbing, probably injured, had he been in a fight? If so then maybe he was with Sam and Tucker…no this voice didn't match them. It sounded familiar though, maybe he had been in an accident, maybe he was dead…maybe he was all ghost now… Slowly he opened his eyes; the broken sunlight filtering through the branches overflowing with leaves pierced his eyes like hot spikes embedding themselves in his brain, assuring him that he was, undeniably, alive.

"Yo, Fentoad!" the voice shouted, almost directly in his ear. He was shook again, a little more gently, but still harsh against his injured shoulder.

He groaned again, unable to respond to the voice any other way. His sight cleared, the pain behind his eyes subsided and his surroundings became more comprehensible. Blinking he looked up at the familiar blonde.

He croaked out a surprised "D-Dash?!" and struggled to sit up, but the only thing he could support himself on was Dash's chest.

"Alright, you're alive now get off me before I make you wish you weren't Fenturd." He hissed irately. Dash was sitting now, his hand grasping Danny's shoulders harshly, ready to haul him off any moment.

Danny pushed himself up, his hands resting against Dash's torso, feeling the hard muscles pressed against the fabric of his shirt, muscles that could shred him in his exhausted state, and Dash's knees pressed against his lower back. A wave of dizziness swept up through his head and he almost fell forward again, but the strong hands that held his shoulders firmly kept him in place. Danny wondered why Dash hadn't chucked him yet. Surely the boy could just stand up and let him fall back to the ground.

Dash wanted to curse again but didn't, despite his usual insulting language he really didn't like to curse. But darn it if the loser wasn't wearing on his nerves. The wimp couldn't have been that hurt, he just fell from a tree. Then again that gash on the side of his arm bled pretty well and by the way Fenton winced when he held him up showed that left shoulder of his was probably hurt two.

Normally Dash would have just dropped him, but sports had taught him not to try and move an unconscious person, especially if they're injured. He didn't know what was wrong with Fenton and what might have caused him to fall hard enough to knock both of them to the ground. He could stick him in a locker, throw a few solid objects at him, and chase him with the threat of bodily harm, but to seriously injure the runt didn't exactly fit in with his high school agenda. He figured he still had a few good years of torment before being knocked to the bottom of the business ladder.

They sat there another moment, Danny in Dash's lap, his hand curled slightly against his chest, Dash's hands grasping his shoulders, their faces so close if it were cold out their breaths would be coming in one large puff as it melded together in the air. Danny trying to reorient himself, and Dash waiting for a sign that he was okay to be thrown off of him.

~*~*~

"Danny!" Sam and Tucker called out in unison. "Danny where are you!"

The figure hovering on the board above the trees came to an abrupt halt in the air. "Oh no, Sam and Tucker." She whispered fearfully before diving down into the brush. If she were to engage in a ghost fight with them near, even a playfully violent one with Danny Phantom, her friends may get caught in the crossfire.

A rustling in the bushes caught Sam's attention. "Tuck over here!" She called.

They both jogged over to the moving plants, a grunt could be heard followed by a loud 'thump' as if someone had fallen.

"Danny?" Tucker asked, shifting aside a branch. Suddenly a figure jumped out at them.

"Sam, Tucker." Valerie huffed, tugging a twig out of her disheveled hair. "What-what are you to doing here?"

"Um, Bird watching." Tucker explained quickly.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked.

"It's a park." She said curtly. "I was walking and I tripped and fell into the bushes." Looking around she asked "Where's Danny?"

"Despite public opinion we aren't always together." Sam snapped back, handing the cat in her arms to Tucker. "Why do you want to know?"

"Whoa, nice kitty, nice kitty!" The cat's claws dug into Tucker, slicing him across the arms and face before jumping down and darting into the bushes.

Taking this as an opportunity to escape Valerie shouted. "Tucker! What did you do to that poor cat?!"

"I didn't do anything! The monster just attacked me!" But Val was already running after the cat.

Sam darted after her and Tucker was left standing, staring after them stupidly before deciding, why not, and following.

Sam skidded to an abrupt stop, causing Tucker to slam into her dropping his camera. Three clicks sounded followed by three quick flashes. He cursed, moving to pick it up, but the image in front of them stopped him.

Dash and Danny were settled in the middle of a cluster of trees and bushes, Danny sat in Dash's lap, his legs on either side of him, their noses almost touching.

Valerie cleared her throat as the cat jumped up on Dashes chest and rubbed against Danny, both boys jerked their heads in the direction of the sound, their eyes widening at the sight of the three teens.

"Are we interrupting something?" Valerie asked.

~*~*~

Danny trudged slowly behind his snickering friends, cursing this world, the ghost world, and every other world in between. He had gym next, and was not looking forward to sitting on the bleachers for the whole class to see. He clutched the doctor's note firmly in his shaking hand, wincing as the strap of the sling rubbed harshly against the back of his neck. He tried not to imagine the sore that would develop and resisted the urge to move his left arm.

To think, he had fought giant monsters, evil ghosts, and enraged football players and walked away will little more than a few choice bruises. But he tried to rescue a no-longer-homeless cat from a park tree, and he ended up with a Proximal Humorous fracture. Not to mention having to endure Tucker's gay jokes for the majority of the morning. As if the cross-dressing thing from freshman year wasn't enough.

"All in the name of good," he muttered. He was NOT looking forward to seeing Dash today, so far he had managed to avoid the burly dope, but gym was always an inevitable collision.

"Aw common Danny, cheer up. At least you saved the cat." Sam struck through his gloomy thoughts like sun through overcast.

"And we got some sweet pictures of you doing it too, we're sure to win the contest now!" Tucker said gleefully as he nuzzled his digital camera.

"Heh, whatever you say guys." He said with an attempt at a smile, they stopped by the school newspaper office on their way to class so Tuck could drop it off.

~*~*~

**"GHOST!"** Jack screamed at the top of his lungs, firing randomly at the furniture in an attempt to hit his target. Green blasts of energy sizzled in the air.

"Jack, what on earth?!" Maddie came running into the living room in the hope of rescuing what was left of her furnishings.

"There's a ghost!"

"What?" She somersaulted over the sofa and landed back to back with her husband. "Where is it?" She asked, her gun at the ready.

"I spotted it sleeking through the shadows, the most hideous yellow eyes glowing at me from the dark corners. This one's sure to be powerful Maddie, keep your guard up."

"Mrroww."

"Gyaaa!" Both Maddie and Jack turned and fired their weapons at the small black cat on the top of the chair.

Frightened the cat jumped down and bolted from the room, slid across the kitchen floor, and collided with Jazz's feet.

"Get it!" Jack rushed into the kitchen with his wife, pointing their guns at the first thing they spotted. "We've got you now ghost."

Jazz looked at her parents with an exasperated expression, the black cat nestled in her arms. "I'm trying to get some rest you two, and I can't very well do that with you guys playing target practice with Danny's new cat."

"Cat?" Jack painted his gun at the ceiling, away from his daughter, and mumbled, "I thought he'd be more of a dog person."

"When did Danny get a pet?" Maddie asked, holstering her gun. "Why didn't he tell us about it?"

"He brought him home yesterday, you know, after his accident?" referring to the tale Sam and Tucker had told their parents. She herself had not overheard whatever lie they had weaved.

"Oh, so this is the little dear that Danny helped out." Maddie plucked the frightened cat from Jazz's arms, cradling him close.

"And to think I thought they were lying when they said he fell when rescuing a cat." Jack said, looking down at the little black fuzz ball.

"I figured he had gotten into a fight at school," Maddie said.

"Or encountered a GHOST! I was planning on having a talk with him when he got home today, but I guess they were telling the truth." Jack pet the cat with his large hand, gun still out and ready.

Jazz sneezed.

"Oh honey, you shouldn't be up and about." Maddie said, letting the cat jump to the floor. "You go back on up to bed."

"Sure mom." Jazz said tiredly, certain they wouldn't try to disintegrate the poor cat again. She only had two more days of spring break, it was bad enough she got a fever, she didn't need any more problems to deal with before going back to school. The little cat followed her up the stairs, sitting by Danny's door until Jazz entered her room, then turned around and fazed through it.

~*~*~

The locker room was alive with conversation and the rank moldy smell of socks. Danny removed the strap around his abused neck, cursing all known and unknown worlds yet again. The doctor's note he had cradled in his hand like some precious ancient treasure was supposed to excuse him from gym class due to his injury, but apparently, it did not excuse him from dressing out. So here he was, in the ruff and rowdy locker room surrounded by unruly high school boys who, in his injured state, all seemed to be bigger and stronger than he was.

Trying to keep out of the way of the wrestling teens while struggling to get his shirt off in the least painful way possible Danny felt frustration like no other. He toyed with the thought of overdressing momentarily before simply opting to phase his left arm out of his shirt. Carefully making it seem as though he had actually taken the offending scrap of clothing off his arm he manually removed it the rest of the way and placed it inside his locker.

He had barely had the time to remove his hand from the locker when it slammed closed, causing Danny to jump and spin around, clutching his P.E. shirt to his chest like a shield covering his injuries. Tilting his face upwards and gazing out through his bangs he faced a sneering Dash.

"Hey Fen-turd, heard you aren't participating in class today, that little scratch on your arm too much for your delicate little body to handle?" Dash mocked.

"Heh, actually Dash I fractured my left humerus." Danny answered, turning slightly to protect his injured arm and show his right. "That "little scratch" only needed a few stitches."

"Oh really now, I'm sorry. I didn't realize your puny little body was so fragile." He sneered, gripping Danny's left arm. "I guess I should be a bit gentler from now on." He gave a savage twist sending white-hot pain shooting through the abused appendage, his smile widening at the cry of pain wrenched from the smaller boy's throat.

Danny released his shirt to clutch at his injured arm, revealing his battered body to the hushed locker room in an attempt to protect his week spot.

Startled Dash abruptly released him, the larger teen stepping away quickly in the crowded space, nearly tripping over the bench in-between the two rows of lockers.

"Geeze Dash, what'd you do to him?" Kwan asked.

"What? I didn't do this!"

~*~*~

Danny trembled as he sat on the bench watching the rest of the class, trying to ignore the glances several guys threw his way. He was glad Tucker's stop by the newspaper had made him late to the locker room, he didn't want to hear him, or anybody right now. And Tucker would automatically assume that as his friend it would be his duty to discuss the terrible bruising that had formed overnight.

He knew it had not been that bad when he had gotten dressed this morning. Something was seriously wrong.

"Baxter!" Mrs. Tetslaff shouted catching Danny's attention, as well as everybody else's in the gym.

"Yes Mrs. Tetslaff?"

"Lancer wants a word with you." The large woman said, indicating the waiting vice-principal with her thumb.

"Yes ma'am." Dash said, dropping the basketball and jogging over to Mr. Lancer.

Danny wondered, briefly, what Mr. Lancer would want with Dash, maybe he was in trouble. He cradled his throbbing arm close to him; he hoped Dash got in trouble for something. But in reality, the oaf was probably receiving some reward for the most sports played by a single person with a low GPA.

Dash never got in trouble, for anything.

Shutting the door to the gym Mr. Lancer led Dash down the halls to the Principal's office where a vexed Principal Ishiyama was seated comfortably behind her desk.

"You wanted to see me?" Dash asked.

"Have a seat Mr. Baxter." The principal stated coldly, when Dash had done just that she asked him, "What is your opinion of Daniel Fenton?

"Fenton? He's okay I guess." Dash looked at Lancer out of the corner of his eye, but quickly snapped his attention back to the principal. What was this about? "A little on the puny side but not everybody can look tough."

"She means, what is your personal opinion of him." Lancer said from the seat beside the desk.

"He's a dork, clumsy and awkward. He's not good at sports, `cept on a few occasions, but he's an alright guy I guess." Dash tried hard not to go too far in his descriptions of Danny's looser-ness. He could get in trouble, may already be in trouble, but he'd been picking on Fenton and his looser friends for years, what would get Ishiyama's panties in a bunch about him now? "Is this like, one of those peer review things?" He decided to inquire.

"Mr. Baxter, it has been brought to my attention that you have been violently harassing Daniel Fenton for quite a while, an incident which has been overlooked by some of our staff." She glared at Lancer.

Dash gulped.

"Come now, it's only harmless high school teasing." Mr. Lancer defended.

"The number of deaths due to "high school teasing" has skyrocketed over the years nationwide, suicide, accidental killings, murder, shootings," She picked up a frame she must have been looking at before they came in, Dash could see an old newspaper, but not what the headline read. Suicide? Murder? Did she think Danny would, what, suffocate in his locker if left there too long? Or maybe… no. Fenton didn't seem like the type to kill himself; he was far too arrogant to do something like that, but… Principal Ishiyama sighed, looking a bit dejected as she set the frame back on her desk with a small 'thunk' "We as educators are obliged to protect today's youth from the outside world, as well as their fellow peers." She opened her eyes to pin Dash with a glare. "I am determined to crack down on bullying and I will start with you." She spoke directly to Dash.

"You don't really think Fenton would hurt himself because some kids are teasing him, do you?" He found himself asking, unsure suddenly of the answer to that question. "I'm only messing with him." Surely only the victims of really bad bullies killed themselves, people with no friends at all who's bullies put them in the hospital and made the whole school hate them, people who were beat up so badly so often death was like an escape, kids who never speak up or defend themselves. People so incredibly different from Danny Fenton. "I've..I've never, never done anything to really hurt him."

"Really," the principal looked doubtful, and a bit annoyed by this. "I have had several students, from this very period, come to my office with concern over Mr. Fenton's health." She leafed through the five incident reports placed on her desk by her secretary. "Assault in the locker room, viciously targeting and twisting his broken arm, there are also details of discoloration, possibly bruises, covering his upper body."

"I didn't do that!" Dash objected. "He fell out of a tree yesterday, that's where he broke his arm and got all those bruises!" This was not happening. Sure, he could get in trouble for bullying Fenton, he could live with that, that's what he did, he bullied him, he didn't mind getting punished for something he had done, but he hadn't given Danny those bruises, he wasn't that kind of person, wasn't that kind of bully. He looked at Lancer, Mr. Lancer knew what kind of bully he was, knew what kind of kid he was, knew he didn't like that kind of ferocity.

"But you did confront him in the locker room at the beginning of this period." She stated, palm smacking against her desk, shocking Dash with her sudden anger. "An injured boy, much smaller than you and not nearly as strong. You grabbed him and twisted his broken arm, doing who knows what kind of permanent harm to the already damaged bone and muscle tissue. We don't even know what part of it is broken, do you realize he may have to have the joints surgically replaced now? Do you know how much that may cost, who would be paying for it? His parents could sue the school for it, we'd have to cut back on several activities, cut classes, maybe fire some teachers to replace it. You could say goodbye to those new uniforms for the baseball and soccer teams, and you're parents could be included in the suit, especially if they psychologically analyze him and find him suffering some sort of mental breakdown due to your constant bullying. Not to mention getting on bad terms with the Fentons could place us in harm's way should they retract their promise to donate the latest in ghost security to our school district to protect the children!" Ishiyama had risen from her desk now, glaring at the two of them, Lancer and Dash.

"The Fentons may be a big joke to many, but Maddie is the greatest ghost hunter in the world, and Jack a brilliant, if somewhat clueless inventor who created, though not perfected, many of the equipment used. Daniel Fenton will inherit that one day as well, and may be even more skilled than his parents due to all his earlier experience. You really want that boy coming after you?"

Dash was no longer looking at the principal, but down at his feet. He hadn't known it was his broken arm; he had grabbed the left one to avoid hurting the one with the cut. He hadn't meant to seriously hurt the dork. Hadn't wanted any of this. Joint replacement, surgery, lawsuits? These were things he never considered, neither had he really understood just how far reaching the Fenton's influence ran. Didn't they consult a government agency as well? What was it, those Guys in White right? Yeah that was it. But did she really think the Fenton's were so vindictive to sue them when they could easily pay for the operation, if he even needed one? Danny would just get back at him was all, like putting itching powder in his football uniform or a stink bomb in his locker. Danny wasn't the kind of person to sue or press charges or file complaints, he was the kind of person who got even, just like Dash wasn't the kind of person who seriously hurt intentionally.

Principal Ishiyama sighed. "When the bell rings for the next class you will escort Mr. Fenton to the Nurses office to be checked out. Ah!" She raised a hand to silence Dash when he would have interrupted. "Your schedule shows you share several classes with him, since he will probably have trouble carrying his books due to his injured arm, you will assist him during those class periods."

"But!" Dash protested.

"No buts, Mr. Baxter. You will be partnered with him for any group projects; you will not speak cruelly or approach him in any threatening manner. Nor will you harass his friends. The members of the staff will be notified and will watch after you two. Is that understood?"

"Yes ma'am." Dash went back to looking at his shoes, sure that his reputation would be ruined, at the very least it would give Fenton and his friends the chance to get even with him big time, and much sooner than usual. Still…

"Principal Ishiyama, really is this necessary?" Mr. Lancer asked, Dash looked at him, but decided not to say anything. Lancer was always on Dash's side, even though he cared about Fenton Lancer liked what the popular crowd could do for him, but even they didn't like him that much. Now, Dash thought, was not the time for Lancer to be butting in.

"Yes. This hierarchy of sports players has gone on long enough. Simply being on an athletic team does not make one better than anyone else. I understand we cannot look after all the students who need our protection from bullies like you, Mr. Baxter, but we will look after this one, and you. Hopefully you'll remember this next time you get it in your mind to attack those smaller than yourself." She glared at Dash. "Go get dressed and be in the Nurses office with Mr. Fenton in ten minutes."

"Yes ma'am." Dash rose from his seat and left the office, closing the door on Mr. Lancer and Principal Ishiyama's discussion on how best to deal with bullies. He thought the principal had her own reasons for pairing them up, mainly the very selfish one of not wanting the school to be sued, but really, there were a million other people who could help Danny. Pairing the two up, when they obviously did not get along, a bully and a helpless victim, just seemed stupid to him. Didn't she realize that if he was really the vicious attacker she claimed he was, he could do anything to Danny now? Even with people watching, who's to stop him from dragging him somewhere nobody could see and doing whatever he wanted?

Entering the locker room he dressed, barely ready before his fellow male gym students entered, as rowdy and sweaty as usual. He managed to smile back at his friends, meeting their high-fives mid air as usual, but not answering their questions of what Lancer had wanted. Instead he shrugged on his jacket, gave a quick glance in the mirror, and made his way over to Fenton's locker.

Danny was struggling between avoiding two wrestling freshmen beside him, and entering his locker combination. One of the boys gave a shout of laughter and lunged at the other, knocking back and bumping right into Danny. Danny let out a yelp of pain, clutching his arm to his chest and backing away from the oblivious teens.

"Hey!" Dash boomed, grabbing the startled boys by their collars. "Watch what you're doing, you losers could hurt someone." Freshman shouldn't even be in this P.E. class, in fact Dash shouldn't be in the class either since he already got his credits for it and did sports, but weightlifting was full, and he wasn't allowed a free period with his grades as low as they were. With a grunt he pushed the frightened freshmen away from Fenton and Foley who were pressing themselves as close to their lockers as possible to avoid the conflict.

Dash turned back to them, his hand slamming down by his right shoulder. Danny flinched, adjusting the strap to the sling when it tried to faze through his neck, desperately trying to hide his trembling arm. Prepared for some kind of blow.

"Get dressed, then meet me in the hall," Dash said, opening the locker for him, "and hurry up about it." He threw over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Dude, how does he know your combination?" Tucker asked, staring after the retreating jock.

Danny shrugged concerned more about why Dash wanted him in the hall. As quickly and carefully as he could he dressed, hoping he wasn't in for any more pain, he had had enough for today.

"Happy freaking 18th Birthday Danny." He mumbled to himself.

~*~*~

A small black cat was curled up on the pillow on Danny's bed, breathing evenly, visibly asleep surrounded by the scent of his rescuer, his new owner. At least that's what it looked like when Jazz poked her head into the room to check on it. Really, he was wide-awake, his little brain going wild over various scenarios that would undoubtedly happen eventually; but in what order, and to what extent? He wondered when his new ghostly companion was coming home. This was the first time he had ever been acquainted with this kind of being. True, he had met those with near death experiences, and even some who had died, for a time, and then came back, taking some kind of spiritual gift with them when they returned. This boy, however, was nowhere near dead or dying, it was…perplexing.

Still, he couldn't count the years he had wandered this world lost with no one to care for or befriend. It was nice to have a soft place to sleep after so long; he only hoped he could be of some help when things got bad.

And they were going to get bad.

~*~*~

Dash led Danny down the locker lined hallways to the nurse's office. Tucker and Sam hung back a ways, partly from the nasty looks Dash was giving them and partly due to Tucker's lethal fear of the nurse's office. It wasn't something he could help or be blamed for; still it was inconvenient at times.

'Like now.' Danny thought as Dash, rather reluctantly, held the door open for him.

Sam staid back with a distraught Tucker who swore his feet would not budge another inch unless it was backwards, to which Sam rolled her eyes, giving Danny an apologetic look as he disappeared around the corner.

Principal Ishiyama was already there as well as Mr. Lancer. Dash gave Lancer a sloppy grin, most commonly used when he was in trouble or failed a test. This time however it was met with a frown as Mr. Lancer's gaze traveled over Fenton's slight, stooped figure.

Danny's eyes were droopy and carried a light purple shadow beneath them, rimmed with dark red outlines, like a kind of red eyeliner, not surprising as it was obvious by how often he dozed off in class that he didn't get much sleep, combined with his hunched posture and how close he cradled his injured arm-

'Now in a sling." Dash thought irritably.

-made for one pathetic, pity-worthy picture.

"Mr. Fenton, this may sound embarrassing but could you remove your shirt?" the nurse requested in a soft voice that sounded oddly like the Lunch-lady's. Creepy much?

"M-my shirt?" Danny squeaked

"Yes, I'm sorry if this is a discomforting subject, there is a curtain you may step behind, but I'm afraid we need to see the bruises on your torso."

"No, no, it's okay." Danny said, but stepped behind the closed curtain anyway. He was too glad for the privacy to really worry about walking out shirtless in front of the principal, and Mr. Lancer, Dash and the Nurse didn't really count since they had seen him without a shirt on more than one occasion.

He let out a sigh and concentrated on fazing through his shirt, letting it and the irritating sling fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. He tried moving his left arm, but the pain, reawakened by Dash's twist earlier, made him stifle a gurgled cry. He chose to keep it at its bent angle, accepting that to let it fall to his side would result in more pain.

"Mr. Fenton," Mr. Lancer called. "Are you done or do you need help disrobing?"

"No I'm good, just a little trouble with the sling." Danny said stepping out from behind his box like space. "It's just a fracture but sometimes it feels like my arm's been ripped off." He joked, trying not to let them see how much it hurt. He went for a chuckle but the collection of dismayed faces halted him. "What? Is there a ghost?!" He asked glancing around nervously, trying not to think of how like his father he just sounded.

"Mr. Baxter!" Principal Ishiyama hissed accusingly.

"I didn't do that! I swear!" Dash cried out horrified. "I never did anything to him that could cause that, I know I didn't."

Danny looked down at his chest and swore aloud, receiving a startled gasp from Dash who's insults, though taunting, were usually mild and unimaginative.

Those were unmistakably bruises, but they were larger and darker than they had been an hour ago. This morning it was obvious he had only fallen from a tree, now…well it looked like he had been hit head on by a bus. 'Or a missile.'

"Dash didn't do this to me." Danny said aloud, causing the principal and Lancer to turn to him. He swallowed hard, not really understanding why he had spoken in Dash's defense. The quarterback was finally getting in trouble and not just for anything, Dash was in trouble for picking on him! Still, his damn annoying conscious never failed to butt in. "I…uh, fell out of a tree yesterday.

"Did you hit every branch on the way down?" Lancer remarked.

"No, but I hit Dash."

"Landed right on top of me," Dash muttered, then realized Danny was trying to help him out and quickly added, "but I walked him home with his pals and Valerie."

"It was a really tall tree." Danny exaggerated. "And there was this cat."

"Yeah, a small black one, I remember." Dash added.

"And I was trying to help it. When I slipped and fell."

"And he landed on me."

"That's quite enough!" Principal Ishiyama interrupted after listening to the story be passed like a ball on the court. "You expect me to believe you received those injuries by rescuing a cat from a tree?"

"And falling," Danny stated with his index finger raised.

"Daniel." The nurse addressed him in her soft caring voice. "Are there some…problems at home?"

Everyone turned expectantly to him.

"What? No! My family is perfectly normal…well as normal as we've always been."

"We all have different views and opinions of family life, perhaps-"

"Enough!" Danny shouted angrily, pulling his shirt back on, wincing when he moved his left arm. "There is nothing wrong with my family!" 'Besides physiological but that wasn't the point.' "The doctor said it was normal for bruises to form around a broken bone, if you have a problem with it just call him." Adjusting his sling he faced the faculty members, and Dash. "Now if you'll excuse me I have another class to get to." With that, Danny walked out the door to his friends and their questioning looks.

Dash glanced from his speechless principal to the speechless Mr. Lancer and back again before heading out to follow Fenton and his nerdy friends. He and Danny had Lancer for the next period so tardiness wasn't an issue, but he was still obligated to carry Danny's books.

Joy.

-

Danny reached into his locker for his English book, the heaviest book in his arsenal of texts, as always. Heaven forbid they give the students a lighter load.

He flinched as the locker beside him slammed closed. Dash was not in the best of moods. But then, he wouldn't be either if he was unjustly blamed for something he didn't do, even though Dash was more than deserving of a little karmic payback. Danny himself was still a little fumed at the incident just now, but chose not to discuss it with the jock. Hurrying he struggled to balance his fat book in one arm while shouldering his locker closed all the while avoiding being shouldered aside himself by the passing students in the crowded halls. Today was so not his day.

Suddenly his fat book disappeared and his locker slammed shut without him even touching it. He swung around, fully expecting to face a ghost, possible the BoxGhost who loved to mess with him during school hours when it was difficult to transform, and thus beat the living shit out of him.

What he didn't expect was to face a rather pissed looking jock looming over him. 'Man, I'm so not in any kind of condition to be shoved in a locker.' he briefly wondered when he was, then shook the thought off as he prepared himself to be lifted and jammed into a confining space.

But Dash just placed the overly large book on top of his own and turned, walking in the direction of their next period class. It was only when he was more than halfway to the opened door that he looked over his shoulder and noticed Fenton wasn't following. Looking down the hall he pinned Danny with a smoldering glare, his body turning to fit his angled head. He shouted to be heard over the throng of chattering students and their conversations. "Yo, Fenton! Hurry up or we'll be late for Lancer's class!"

All. Talking. Stopped.

Like a well choreographed rippling wave all the students shifted their heads in Danny's direction.

The sudden suffocating silence snapped Danny out of his stupor, staring nervously at the students around him he hurried awkwardly to Dash's side. It was like one of that creepy, badly written drama's where everybody was lined up against the locker's, staring at a student as he walked down the hall. 'Dead man walking' could almost be heard whispered just beneath the sound of his tapping shoes. He reached Dash, and the two continued, tense and uncomfortable they walked side by side down the rest of the hall until they disappeared into the class.

The conversations burst back to life once the two had entered the open classroom. The topic, Dash and Danny's strange new behavior. The two never walked to class together, ever, even when they were civil to each other. This new development would be the talk of the next two hours, but wouldn't survive any longer unless something juicier came of it.

In fact, a particularly clumsy cheerleader was suppose to have chemistry tutoring next period, that should replace it for the rest of the day.

One student, however, was scribbling down notes in a half hazard scrawl-like handwriting, intent of capturing this moment while it was still hot in their minds, sure it was good for at least a mention in the newspaper, unaware of how her small tidbit of gossip would change their school drastically.

-

"What a bunch of idiots," she stated as she skimmed over the accumulation of digital photos e-mailed to the school newspaper account. Already she had gone through the printed photos and reaped similar results. Poor quality, repeated prints from the city newspaper and magazines, or just plain fakes, and horrible ones at that. "As often as the ghost boy appeared you'd think there would be at least a few decent pictures of him."

But sadly none. With a sigh she turned to the only camera turned in. Tucker Foley's.

How typical of him to turn in the whole friggen thing rather than just e-mail them in. Hooking up the camera and downloading the contents from the card was time consuming enough, but not infuriatingly so. Until a pop-up informed her there were over 170 pictures on the card.

"Terrific." She mumbled, knowing less than a fifth was actually of the ghost boy. "Does he ever clear this thing out?" she asked the empty room in slight amusement as she stared at a picture of Danny Fenton in freshman year dressed as the Casper High Spirit Baby. Now that was a funny sight. She mused thinking back to the days when she was just starting out in Journalism, wondering what had brought on the spout of depression she had sank into the very next day. "Guilt probably, the poor kid was humiliated and I did an article on him."

Continuing her browsing she finally came across her quarry. "And we have a winner!" There he was, Danny phantom, rescuing a poor defenseless cat from a tree in Amity Park's City Park. A horrible cliché but the best pictures turned in so far. Tempting.

Browsing through the selection she began mentally filing away the best ones for publication.

"You'll NEVER guess what I just saw!" The gossip columnist burst through the door with a scream of pure fan-girlish glee.

"Let me guess, a ghost?"

"No, but just as good." She bounced into a chair and wheeled it around to face her companion. "Okay, there I was, just waiting in the hall for something juicy to turn up like it usually does during passing period, when who but Dash Baxter should come walking by, right out of the nurse's office with this peculiar look on his face. I was going to ask him if a team member had been injured and what it would mean for the team this season, I know I'm not in sports but I figured it would be good gossip anyway, plus I could pass it on right? So I followed him to his locker hoping to catch him before he headed to class. I could tell he was in a rotten mood because he slammed his locker closed harder than usual."

"Does this story have a point?"

"I'm getting there Mrs. Irritable. Anyway he turns to Danny Fenton and it looks like he's gonna pound the poor guy again because his jaw is all tight and I swear I could see a vein popping out on his forehead. I was thinking it was too bad because Danny's arm was in a sling and he looked really tired, more so than usual. But then Dash just grabbed Danny's book and shut his locker, just walking off, but when Danny didn't follow him, Dash stopped and turned around and shouted for him to get a move on. He even held the door to Lancer's class open for him!" The gossiper added with another squeal. "Its so unlike him, all gentle and stuff."

"You don't say." She said softly as an image caught her eye. She clicked to enlarge it.

"I'm thinking 'Bully Turns over New Leaf', or maybe, 'Quarterback Aids Injured Peer.'" The gossip columnist turned to her companion. "What do you think? Does Dash maybe have some secret soft spot for this Fenton kid? I mean, when Tucker had a broken leg for a while, remember, and Dash never did anything for him, so why be nice to Danny when his arm is just in a sling, right? Wait, you don't think Dash hurt him bad and is just helping him out of guilt do you? Dash never goes too far, not that a good scandal isn't needed, but Dash is so controlled."

"I'm thinking this may be a bit deeper that pity gal…." she turned away from the picture on the monitor screen to flash her annoying companion with a conniving smile. "Much deeper."

"Oh my," The gossiper blushed when she saw the image, then added with her own devious grin. "This is too good."

-

Grumbling Dash walked out to his car, ignoring his gawking friends who stood on the school steps watching him. He had felt rejection before, usually from Paulina who thought she was too cool to date even him. But Fenton?!

"Who does Fenton think he is?!" He shouted fisting his hair in frustration. "He should have been thrilled by the offer. But noooo, he just says "no thanks" and walks off like it didn't kill me to ask him in front of those people."

Several students had stopped to stare, whispering amongst themselves at Dash's odd words. He sent them a nasty glare that had them scattering. His fierce expression dropped a bit however as he got to his car and he fiddled with his keys sadly. He had only tried to be nice, like Lancer and the principal told him to be. Why couldn't Fenton accept that? He didn't always have to be planning something right? There were times when the two of them were civil, even friendly. Did the guy honestly weigh everything they did together with such suspicion?

Driving off school campus he couldn't help but wish Fenton wasn't so afraid of him.

-

Danny, Sam, and Tucker all entered his house, fully prepared for an onslaught of questions about the incident yesterday. Rescuing a cat from a tree, very believable excuse. Startled, but not completely surprised that his living room looked like ground zero they entered the kitchen, which was pretty much the usual hangout for the family.

"What's all this stuff?" Danny asked his mom who was sitting at the table covered in cat supplies, wrestling with the plastic straps connecting a new tiny cat collar to its cardboard back.

"Oh, it's just a few things for Odin." She said with a "Hah!" as she finally freed the strap from its confining package.

"Odin?'

"The cat!" His dad popped his head in around the corner of the stairwell leading to the lab, a small black cat popped its head around his father's with a, "mroow."

"The cat, my cat?" Danny shook his head. "You named my cat, without asking me?" After today's events, he was seriously not in the mood for anyone to be usurping his cat-naming privileges, whether he wanted the damn animal or not.

"Well Danny, we couldn't just keep calling him 'the cat'." Maddie walked up to her husband and picked up the tiny cat who struggled in her grip as she slipped the collar around his neck.

"You couldn't wait a few hours until I got home? Come on!" Danny was sure he was acting a bit childish about this, but he had a hard ass day.

"What would you name him then, sweetie?"

"Um..uhn.." He hadn't expected to win so suddenly, damn his parents and their teenager-handling knowledge. Actually he hadn't planned on keeping the thing at all, it just followed him home; really it did. 'Oh crap, name, name, name, Odin, what a shitty name for a cat. A dog maybe, but a cat?' Damn, maybe he could just blurt some goofy name out. No, then why not just keep Odin if it's something stupid. 'Oh damn.'

'Grimalkin.' The name entered his mind like a flutter of leaves in the autumn wind, in a voice that sounded like it too. His immediate thought when it popped up was, 'what the hell does that mean?' but not having anything else to work with he blurted out, "Grimalkin!"

"Grimalkin? What an odd name. Why name him that?" Maddie asked her son.

"Well you two look busy in here." To emphasize the point a few tiny mice toys dropped from the table onto the floor with a squeak. Danny quickly grabbed his friends by the shoulders and began pushing them towards the door. "And we've got homework to do! So we'll be up in my room. Bye." With that, they trotted out of the kitchen and up the stairs, the small black cat comically scrabbling up the tall steps after them.

Maddie and Jack looked at each other and shrugged. Teenagers.

-

"You're sure about this?" The Editor asked.

"Just look at it! This picture, Dash's behavior today, maybe even why Fenton is always the one targeted. It all makes sense!"

"This isn't a free press. We could get in trouble for this by the district."

"They GAVE us the picture. Knowingly or not they gave it to us.

"We'll have to ask the teacher, and maybe run it by the principal, but I think we can get it in by Monday." The two girls high-fived each other, but the editor cut it short quickly, "But we run the Phantom story first page, got it? This story stays in the gossip category. Now get to work, we've got a lot of work if we want to run this Monday."

"Yes ma`am."

-

I've been without a computer for a while do to my sibling stupidity during a thunder storm. As such I've had to use an utter crap computer only twice a week with an on screen keyboard. So instead of trying to agonize over the next chapter in such cercumstances, I went through and fixed up the first 16, and have decided to condence it, so you wont click the next button and have to read a chapter that's only a few paragraphs long, It'll probably bring the chapters in to about 8 in total now, but I hope you guys like it. I've changes some things, fixed some errors, and filled out the dialogue and descriptions so that it flows better. Hopefully the reading speed bumps were all smoothed out.

Thanks to everyone who have waited so patiently for the next update.


	2. Zero Tollerance

"So after you left Dash comes up and I think he's gonna pound me, but he just takes my book, shuts my locker, and walks off." Danny explained the happenings of last period to his friends, gazing at them from behind his math book. "I stood there thinking 'He stole my book!' when he all of a sudden turns around and shouts at me to hurry up! He wouldn't budge from his spot until I was walking next to him. And the hall was such an eerie silent I thought the students all had a stroke."

"Dude, he's gotta be up to something." Tucker stated, while amusingly trying to stay as far away from the 'demonic cat' as the small room would allow.

"I thought so too, especially after class when he stopped me and offered me a ride home, in front of Star and Kwan and Lancer."

"He definitely had something planned for after school." Sam agreed.

"Probably some whale-on-Fenton-fest, good thing you turned him down." Tucker congratulated.

"Yeah, but it didn't look like Kwan or any of the other guys were in on it, they looked like he just quit the team!"

"Or offered a looser a ride home," Sam commented sarcastically.

"So you think he's gone solo on this plot?" Tucker questioned.

"Doubt it, he doesn't have the brains."

"So he's either suddenly sprouted intelligence or is working with outside forces." Sam scribbled down the answer to a problem before looking back at them.

"Or maybe…." Danny pressed his math book further against his face as he thought it over.

"Or what?" they asked in unison.

There was a long silence before he whispered. "Maybe he's trying to be nice."

Sam and Tucker immediately burst into laughter at the notion, Danny just continued to stare at his math book until the problems ran together and the page was as blurry as a fogged mirror.

Unconsciously he reached out to pet the purring cat in his lap. Why was Dash being nice to him?

-

Dash's bag dropped to the floor with a hollow "thunk", reminding him that there was a whole other floor beneath his feet and to please be quiet. He ignored it, kicking off his shoes like every other day when he came home. Pressing 'Play' on his remote, Dash dropped down onto his bed in the hopes of completing the movie he had started the previous night when he had returned from Fenton's house.

"Fenton." He growled out the name, it left a bad taste in his mouth since freshman year. He never knew why, but the kid had always rubbed him the wrong way. Whenever he had to reaffirm his place as popular athlete and head bully his sights always turned to Fenton, whenever he was too angry to really keep it bottled there was Fenton, whenever he just felt like hitting something for no apparent reason, just because it was fun, Fenton was there.

Sometimes he felt like hitting something simply because Fenton was there.

He didn't know why the teen's mere presence made adrenaline rush through his system, didn't really understand why touching him, looking at him, even being near him made every hair on his body stand on end and his heart beat faster, it gave him an empowering charge, like during a big game. Maybe he pounded on Fenton because he could fight back, challenge him, something none of the other kids did. Everyone else just kind of rolled over, Fenton fought back, or got even.

And when things seemed to go a little too far, the dope would apologize. He apologized! Dash shook his head at the notion of actually voicing his regret for picking on someone. Sure, he felt bad about beating on Fenton now, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to trip him in the hallway later down the road, or shove him in a locker sometime after this huge spectacle died down. And he certainly wasn't going to tell the looser he was sorry.

It was difficult to keep that energy and restlessness bottled up, he had to let it out, in any way he could. So most of the time Fenton was the recipient of this rupture, but he aimed it at other people and activities too. It's not like he targeted Fenton specifically.

Anyway, it didn't matter now, he was forced to help and be nice to the one person he hated, well, marginally didn't get along with, most, all because of a stupid accident. If he could, he would take his frustration out of some helpless victim, but that was out of the question now that the staff members would be keeping an extra eye out for any abusive or threatening behavior. Damn them. Damn Fenton, the school, and his own stupid guilt.

It's not like he did anything!

He was barely aware of the cry-me-a-river ending scene that normally had him bawling his eyes out with a box of tissue beside him. His mind kept wandering back to the locker room, back to the nurse's office. To the terrible dark bruises marring Fenton's pale chest. His story, exaggerated to a point, to help get Dash off the hook.

He didn't do anything! Yet that didn't man something didn't happen to him..and he could have lied and said it had been Dash, even though it wasn't.

Fenton could have lied. Told them Dash had beaten him, told them he had caused those horrible bruises and fractured his arm, told them anything! And they would have believed him without question, no matter what. Nothing Dash could have said would have changed their minds; they were already convinced he was guilty. They would have sided with Fenton.

But that wasn't the case.

Fenton had sided with 'him', had deliberately altered the story, however trivial, to aid 'him'. He could have gotten rid of Dash once and for all, but instead he helped him.

Perhaps that was why he had swallowed his pride and carried Fenton's books, waited for him, and even offered him a ride home. In front of his friends no less! Sure, he was still a little upset about the rejection, if you could call it that. More a small rebuff, but still he had refused the offer. Humiliating.

Regardless… For all his hatred, all his cruel acts, the years he spent beating, mocking, and pranking the smaller teen, didn't Fenton share his loathing?

Turning off the TV Dash lay back in his bed, his favorite teddy bear cradled against the crook of his shoulder. He looked outside his window at the neighborhood around him, still a bright afternoon. Maybe he could go for a jog, clear his head. Stop worrying about his reputation and his new task.

After all, it's only for a little while, and for all anybody knew he could just be setting Fenton up for the ultimate prank.

"Yeah, that's a good excuse. But only after Fenton's healed. Wouldn't want it getting back to him and make him worry about me more. Yeah, let them guess for a week or two." With a nod Dash sat up, and pulled his shoes back on. A nice walk would do him a lot of good.

-

"It's growing?!"

"Well…I'm not positive but I'm sure it wasn't this bad this morning." Danny lifted his white shirt to expose the purple and green discolorations slashing across his bare chest.

"Dude, it looks like you were—"

"Hit in the chest by a rocket? I know." He pulled his shirt back down to hide the damage. "I don't get it. Normally this kind of stuff doesn't faze me. I don't bruise, I don't scar, I rarely even bleed heavily. It doesn't make sense!" Danny let his head fall with a "thunk" onto the math book balanced on his knees startling the small cat lightly dozing between his legs.

"Maybe there's a problem with your ghost powers." Tucker offered. "Like when you went through puberty."

"Or maybe you were just hit harder than usual." Sam, the ever-valued voice of reason chimed in as she collected her books and glanced at her watch with a sigh. "We've got to get going. My mom's got this rally thing she wants me at and Tucker is my 'bring a friend' option." Before they exited, she turned back. "Remember what the doctor said? That bruising is normal, so don't go off stressing about it so much, it could be nothing."

"Or it could be something really bad." Danny mumbled after they had left his room.

-

"There. Finished!" Danny proclaimed as the book snapped closed, a finality that ended all homework completing missions around the world. Carefully leaning down he peered through the floor and into the kitchen underneath. Grimalkin watched with amusement as his newfound human kneeled with his romp in the air and his head through the floors.

Maddie and Jack were in the kitchen occupied with the many pet supplies, discussing some benefits to having an animal around as a living ghost detector. "Well Mom and Dad are occupied with the whole cat thing." He rose from the floor, shaking his head to readjust his ruffled hairstyle. "So long as they don't come up and ask my opinion I'm in the clear." He glanced at his door, "But just in case."

Walking over he flipped the electrical lock Tucker and he had made last summer down in the lab into place. If his parents came up and tried the door the lock would keep the door shut and play the chosen vocal recordings he made each day. He pressed the small green button, preparing his new recording with the keyword cat. If the chosen keywords were mentioned this recording would automatically play.

Between "I'm not hungry." For the words 'Breakfast', 'Lunch', 'Dinner', 'Eat', and 'Food'; and "I don't want to talk about it right now." For the words 'Talk' and 'Discuss', he recorded. "Grimalkin's fine, for now, can't it wait for morning?!" and "He just got here, don't overwhelm him! Wait till tomorrow! Sheesh!"

With a smile, hoping that they didn't ask anything that wasn't covered he turned to face his window. "I guess it's time for patrol."

As if it were his queue Grimalkin jumped up, wrapping himself around Danny's ankles, quite a feat for such a small creature, and purred like a Porsche turbo. _I want to come! _He called in his feline language. _Take me too!_

"What, you want to come?" Danny asked incredulous. The small animal called again, and Danny had to stumble back because he couldn't get his feet to move with the small sleek creature winding around his ankles like a python. "Okay, okay, sheesh." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "I remember the last time I worked with animals around ghosts, not the most pleasant experience." He put his hands on his hips and glared down at the miniature black creature who sat on his foot expectantly. Chartreuse eyes that took up most of the round black face looked pleadingly up at him, and he felt a bit of his resolve crumble away.

It didn't take long for him to break entirely and soon his shoulders slumped.

He was defeated, defeated by a tiny black cat that was too adorable for his own good.

"Well, damn. I guess you can come. Not like a little thing like you could cause much trouble." He rummaged through the chest at the foot of his bed, tossing out a few old videogames and some broken controllers he liked to use as spare parts until he found his bulky hiking fanny-pack and clicked it around his waist. When he transformed, it's ruddy brown color became a mixture of black and white, and the dull black zipper which stuck halfway through turned silver, and slid open to his touch as if it were oiled and polished. Now appearing as his ghostly self, with his new accessory a perfect match, he scooped the tiny cat up and fazed through his wall.

Grimalkin merely narrowed his eyes as he was placed in the pack. It would be a lot more dangerous tonight than the phantom expected, though he admitted, the costume change did impress him.

-

The air was thick with the smell of rain, the sky an ever-present blanket of grey upon grey, heavy with water and a strong need to relieve itself of its burden. Down below never ending scenery provided entertainment to occupy the uninterested mind of a cloud as it traveled across the sky.

At this particular time in the road trip the cluster of misty travelers gazed down at the dark city of Amity Park, silent and sleepy but for the Friday night daters out for fun. Bored, embittered, and sufficiently annoyed by the wild biting wind that tossed them across the sky the past few days they let loose with a downpour of water. Like a drunken egg, the clouds cracked open and vomited their contents on the city.

Dash casually strolled down the street from the Nasty Burger with some buddies of his, the taste of cheap, greasy fast-food still present in the back of his mouth. As an athlete, he knew the consequences of digesting the garbage fast food restaurants sold to unsuspecting customers as food, but he couldn't help but be drawn to the stuff occasionally. He recalled how he and his friends used to hang out and eat at the Nasty Burger more often than at their homes. Now they rarely set foot in the place.

With a wistful sigh he turned to gaze up at the night sky, starless due to overcast, but none the less beautiful. A continuous blend of purples, blacks, grays and blues, the wind mixing them all together like the blades of a blender, easily swiping away one color to replace it with another, swirling like a vortex of paint before moving on into the next phase of the dance around the world.

Silver-blue lightning arched across the sky like the winding body of an enraged dragon with a close following thunderclap at the exact moment the very first drop of rainwater splattered between the wide blue eyes of his upturned face. It sliced like a blade across the sky, illuminating the darkness for an instant in a hot white light, tinged with blue frost. Tendrils of electricity slashed out from the sides of the main bolt in an effort to flee from their beautiful, powerful mother. Like the roots of a small plant they connected the clouds to the ground in a delicate web of stunning command that once had people, long ago, falling to their knees in worship of their deities and their magnificent authority.

A drop of water landed on his forehead, right above his nose. He brushed it away and brought himself back to the conversation his friends were having.

He had managed to salvage his social life at the Nasty Burger as a few members of the team, both basketball and football, had gathered there in conference without his knowledge to discuss the sudden turn of events. He had been lucky to stumble upon them, even luckier to find an excuse come easily upon his lips.

Not exactly a lie, he figured Fenton was being beaten pretty badly after school by somebody else and had wanted to find out who was doing it. Really he had wanted to inform the teen about the principal's little scheme and set some ground rules, but there was no reason to tell these people that. So he had lied to his friends, not something that would bother him much, if they didn't accept it so easily. Like he was really some territorial jock who didn't want someone else stalking his prey. They should know that Dash didn't have a problem with other people picking on the guy, Kwan did it all the time, and Paulina too.

Worse off, they began discussing creating a bodyguard for hire business. What the hell? So suddenly he quits bullying and decides to help a kid and now they all want to? For a price of course. He couldn't help but realize his friends, even teammates, had such low morals as they discussed ways to bully kids into hiring "protection."

Fenton could actually be having some dangerous problems and all these kids could think of was how they could take advantage of it?

It hit him, sitting there half listening to the planning, how close Danny could have been to death today. He had tried to flee from his thoughts by walking, but they just became more determined to be noticed, heard, and acknowledged. And though he couldn't place every jagged piece of this complex puzzle together all at once he could build it up from the corners and slowly work in, like arrows pointing in the direction he would work towards the center, and the answer.

He wasn't very smart, he accepted that, and he would never call himself a caring person. But he was an athlete at heart, and by nature a team player. He knew when to take the lead and when to pass the ball. Right now he felt like a transferred player into a rival team, and he had to figure out how to earn the trust and acceptance of players he once called his opponents.

Maybe it was like Lancer said, maturity didn't just strike you when you became a teenager, or entered high school, or even graduated. It was something that grew with you, slowly bending and altering you based on the mold your decisions made for you. It would have been easier to judge people these past few years of high school if the molds that built them were a visible, tangible thing, like a clear, warped casing, hovering around a person so everyone could see what they were and may become. Dash imagined his would be pretty disfigured.

Turning away from that disturbing fragment of reflection, he trained his thoughts on what he would do to help Fenton and prove to the faculty staff, which would no doubt be monitoring his every move, that he had no intention of pushing his fellow student over the edge.

His pals and him called their farewells and dispersed as the full force of the shower began to crash down around them. He resolved to follow through on his earlier plan to inform his new ward of just what was awaiting him at school the next morning, no point in avoiding it, after all who knew what confrontation would get between them come school time?

Slowly he trudged on, with heavy rain and heavy conscience weighing him down, towards the Fenton's home, and hopefully a new piece to this conundrum.

-

Danny flew through the darkening clouds, it was a while after the sun had officially set in the City of Amity Park, but from his position he could still witness the last remnants. The clouds surrounding him were like a thick grey fog, tinged with a dark blue as the night crept closer and closer. He could feel the tension in the clouds, the misty essence around him clammy, the water in the air so heavy it was difficult to breathe and condensation appeared on his cool ghostly skin, a small drop rolled down his furrowed brows to fall from the tip of his nose to the world. He watched it travel, the single falling drop a leader in a march as directly behind it the clouds around him let loose with their army of watery soldiers to lay siege to the Friday night partiers of Amity Park.

The tension was building as he hovered somewhere between the starry night sky and the rain, the air as thick with anxiety as a brewing battle. The cat stuck its head out of his fanny pack and cried when the air around them seemed to sizzle with electricity. The atmosphere weighing down on them with force and Danny cursed, shooting from the clouds as fast as he could as the lightning bolt was birthed, nearly catching him in the current as it connected the earth to the heavens in a bridge of electricity. It had only been an instant but the motions were so smooth, so precise, that Danny could play it back in his mind with acute detail as if it had gone painfully slow, allowing him the privilege of observation.

The air that filled his lunges reeked of ozone and the water splattered against his face like bullets, piercing his body with needles of pain. He fell to the ground in a race against the raindrops, easily passing them with the added push of his ghostly power that drove him from the clouds to the ground with all the force he could produce in that instant reaction, except this time Dash wasn't there to catch him.

There was only a moment of fear as he tried to ease his fall, but he didn't have time and he met with the ground at the exact instant the thunderclap from the lightning bolt shook the quiet night.

-

He wasn't home; Dash knew that the moment he knocked on Danny's bedroom door. His parents, the crazy but endearing couple they were, had piled bags of cat stuff by the door because their son refused them entry, something he could never get away with at home. However, when they spoke through the door, Danny's voice could be heard, he didn't feel like receiving visitors.

Dash new that Danny wasn't in his room. Just knew it, because parents were used to the empty presence that lay beyond locked doors, because what teenager didn't sneak out? But Dash wasn't used to it, and he knew when a place was empty. So he left, silently wondering what he would have said if Danny had been home. Just like him to walk into a situation without thinking. In fact, it was just like him to not think, period. Unless it was about girls or football, but what high schooler didn't think about those?

When he did think, however, the complexities of his mind often surprised him. Perhaps it was all those game plays he had to run through, or maybe he was not some big idiot but really just a bit unmotivated in schoolwork, like all the teachers liked to say, but he knew they were wrong. He was plenty motivated, if he wasn't he wouldn't have overcome so many obstacles so get where he was.

He knew his problem; he was dyslexic, plain and not so simple. He worked all through elementary school with this difficulty before his parents finally figured out what was wrong and got him help. So people all over the city thought he was stupid so what? Lancer and Mrs. Tetslaff knew the truth, and in a way he was smarter then everyone. He knew the game plays better than his coach and Mr. Lancer worked hands on with him constantly.

The rain was pouring down harder, making him think of the tears he had cried during middle school when he had been kicked off the softball team because of his failing grades. The water on his face was cold and refreshing and brought him small comfort in the fact that he had left the old town flying far away like the clouds overhead to this small town where no one knew him as the stupidest kid in school, only moving on because his parents were rich and could buy his grades.

Here he had worked as hard as he could with his private tutors to keep up, no matter how confusing things got, and made the football team by sheer determination. Now, Lancer at his back for support he managed to keep his GPA just points above the dropping range and made his name in sports. He knew if he put his mind to it he could solve this puzzle, wasn't that just what he was good at? There was some pattern here and he would find it, but first he had to find Fenton, because, in the deepest part of his chest something felt wrong.

It only intensified as he saw a soaking wet black cat dart out of an alleyway and across the street, directly towards him. His felt like screaming as he looked into glowing green eyes before the tiny beast reared back on its haunches and launched itself right at him.

-

Danny woke to find himself sprawled on the wet cobblestone alleyway in the junction between two old apartment buildings from when the city was first built in the 19th century. Strange how that was the first thought in his mind, not the searing pain he was feeling, not the horrid smell of whatever got washed by the rain into the puddle he was lying in, not the fact that his cat may be friggen squashed beneath him. He was somewhere in the old part of Amity Park, just a bit to the north of where he lived, and he should be dead.

But he was ghost at that moment wasn't he? Ghosts couldn't die right? But they sure as hell could hurt. He struggled to sit up, feeling the assuring jolt of pain, much like that of the lightning that knocked him out of the clouds, strike through his body practically screaming that he was positively alive and could he please move a little slower next time, and that was all he thought before his mind went blank with pain again. He rolled to his side and clutched his throbbing arm, feeling as though some kind of monster was chewing on his left shoulder.

He took a deep breath, swallowing the groan before it was halfway up his throat as he shakily surveyed his surroundings. He saw a huddled group of the homeless watching him eerily from the shadows, a bit unnerving but understandable. He probably landed right in the middle of their shelter from the rain.

Problem was they weren't covered or even cowering in the shadows from the rain and the cold. They were standing in the middle of the alleyway, in the middle of the rain, without coats, without cover. Just staring at him, their eyes a bright, glowing green.

He sat up.

Green?!

He let the breath he was holding come out in a stream of cold mist as another frosty slash of lightning lit the night sky illuminating the alleyway and tinged his breath with the faintest kiss of blue. These weren't the clustered bodies of the homeless, but ghosts, and of a kind he'd never seen before. These were true horrors, clearly visible from the green glow now resonating from them as their powers became known.

They had to be ghosts, because no living thing could look…

so…

Dead.

The bright green glow of the eyes came from dark sunken sockets, decomposing flesh hung like rags from dark red bones, almost brown, like dried blood but slick and wet and dripping in the rain. They shambled towards him on limbs that no longer had the strength or, he noticed, muscle, to hold them up. They moved only by the ghostly will and power that drove all dead beings.

He stood, frightened, unaware of his own pain as he watched these dead creatures inch closer to him, decomposing where they walked, their decaying juices running down their morbid bodies to leave a stinking trail of rot from the scorched cobblestones where they had been standing to the few feet that separated them from him.

Some of them laughed, a cruel howling sound that not even the worst specter on the ghost zone could ever perfect. They laughed and screeched and pointed blaming fingers of accusation at him. Their faces were contorted in rage, their laughter gleeful moans of outrage and triumph. He never realized anything so happy could sound so resentful.

Danny stood and took a step backward, a shaky, stumbling step that bent his foot sideways painfully and shocked him into turning. He had faced many things, many, many things in the four years he'd been fighting ghosts, but nothing had ever appeared before him in combat looking so…terrifying. He turned from the fleshless, rotting horrors, the jutting bones, the spilling entrails, and ran…

And slipped…

And fell…

Hard.

Pain shot through his body and he was paralyzed. By terror, and pain, and the knowledge that soon those grisly, rotting creatures would be upon him, clawing at him with bloody fingers, bones like talons glistening in the reddish-brown ooze. The rain did nothing to wash away the gruesome trickle of fluid that pooled around their shuffling feet. As he turned to look at them over his shoulder he knew he wouldn't be able to move, he couldn't move.


	3. Poking Stick

'Fly away, turn intangible, shoot ectoplasm blasts out of your butt, but for the love of all that is living do something!' Danny screamed to himself, but he was too scared. He couldn't remember being so scared before, ever. These horrors, slowly creeping in on him, their voices oozing menace like the rotting juices that trailed off their bodies, they frightened him like nothing else could. He couldn't move.

"Get away from him!" The shout rang from behind him, startling him out of his frozen state the same time a metal trashcan hit the first three ghosts in the crowd approaching him. The three rotting creatures tumbled back, almost knocking the others down too, however the crowed had that one small instant to prepare and turned intangible, letting their comrades fall straight through them to the ground.

Dash had grabbed Danny by the arm and they were running, down the alleyway, out into the street, the pouring rain hitting them like a spray of bullets, but it was bearable, a preferred fate to the horror movie brought to life chasing after them.

The streetlights and porch lights illuminated the dark urban streets, golden showers of light in the dark watery night, but Danny didn't see. His vision was clouding, darkness creeping into his eyes. His body hurt, aching legs that pushed him further, muddy rubber boots struggled for purchase on the concrete, and a burning chest.

His chest, it hurt the worst, a terrible ache that made his legs turn to liquid and his running into a stumbling, sliding mess of limbs. And he finally realized why.

He wasn't breathing.

He tried to take in a breath, but it wasn't working. Something was wrong, he couldn't breathe! He tugged on Dash's jacket, unable to get a breath to speak, as if a cork had been stuck in his windpipe.

Dash looked back for a moment at Danny, but all he saw was the small mob of ghosts chasing after them, and catching up fast.

"Shit, I thought they were slow!" Dash cursed. Danny would have commented that ghosts tend to prolong their attacks to frighten victims, but hey he couldn't breathe! And Dash didn't seem to notice this in the least, instead he sped up their pace and Danny knew he would pass out from lack of oxygen soon.

And then his legs finally gave out and he stumbled. He didn't actually fall, but he stumbled slightly and the arm that Dash had imprisoned in his grasp was nearly ripped from its socket when he turned the corner and they slid into another alley.

Danny hit the hard blacktop chest and chin first and a sharp spike of pain ripped through the burning, causing him to gasp and choke, but he had resumed his breathing. And that was fine with him.

There was a wicked cackling from directly behind them and Danny didn't have to turn around to know that they were caught. Dash struggled to his knees, staring defiantly over his shoulder but Danny couldn't move. He just lay there on his chest breathing in precious oxygen. He'd never take another breath for granted again.

Dash got his hand under Danny's arm, prepared to run again, but Danny knew he wouldn't make it. He felt woozy from running without oxygen and every limb felt wobbly and weighed down. Besides even the light from the streetlamp directly overhead didn't chase away the shadows of his vision, he was very close to passing out. Not good.

"Dash." He gasped out, Dash could run away, they didn't want him; at least Danny didn't think they did. He didn't even know why they wanted him! Of course, being the Halfa and kicking ghost butt for nearly four years would be the most obvious reason. Still did he want to risk Dash's safety? "Get –gasp- get behind me."

No, Dash wouldn't escape. Ghosts had no sense of a single victim. He would be targeted just for being there; actually involving himself in the fight only gave them a reason to attack. No, he would have to fight.

"You can't fight Danny." It was easy to use Danny Phantom's name without confusion, since Dash only ever called the human Danny by his last name. Still, Danny felt a little tingle at hearing it from him, it was…strange. "Look at you; you're going to pass out." Wow, if even Dash could tell, he must really look a mess.

Snickering could be heard and Dash looked back to the crowd that was forming, once again approaching slowly. Oh how they must love the dramatic tension.

Danny tried to stand on unsteady legs, supporting himself on his right knee for a moment before Dash, his grasp on Danny's arm still firm and authoritive helped him rise.

"I said get behind me." Danny shook the restraining hand off and stepped forward, Dash, startled by the harsh tone took a step back, just behind but to the side of his ghostly hero, fully prepared to catch him if he fell and take off again.

Danny faced the horrors, looking much like the mob of homeless people again. He cringed as their rejuvenated faces once again started going through the various stages of decay. They reminded him of clockwork, a continuing cycle of rebirth and destruction. He saw them now for ghosts, ignoring the gore and gnashing teeth, the hateful cackles and the glowing empty sockets. They were ghosts, and he fought ghosts.

Well, it was time to do what he did.

Taking as deep a breath as his strained lungs would allow he opened his mouth and howled.

It came easier these days than it had three years ago when he had first learned it; actually a lot of his powers came easier to him, but it still took so much out of him. Like a special attack on a videogame, it depleted his power supply nearly to zero, and since he was so close to zero to begin with… he wasn't feeling exactly like he did when he left home that evening.

But it was effective, and the ghosts that weren't ripped apart fled with their wounded comrades. Leaving him and a startled, and slightly frightened, Dash alone in the circle of light from the lamppost.

"Danny?" Dash asked, taking a cautious step forward. Danny was visibly shaking from the exertion and the woozy feeling he had earlier intensified to a just come off the rollercoaster after eating nachos kind of dizziness, but instead of slouching over and vomiting, like he would like to have done at the time, he fell to the grown, darkness claiming his vision before he even hit the asphalt.

"D…Phantom?" Dash shakily crouched by the exhausted ghost, wondering what he should do. He was trembling from excitement and adrenaline and, and terror. Yes, that was what he was feeling, pure terror. The kind that made your palms all clammy and your breathing heavy and your stomach tight and queasy, he was scared. After this, he was sure he wouldn't be able to look out the window on a rainy night without getting goose bumps.

Speaking of rain, it seemed to have halted for the moment. Rain always seemed to have a mind of its own, and aside from the rebellious sprinkle escaping from the clouds here and there, all falling water had ceased. Good news, since walking home in the rain wasn't really good for his strained nerves at the moment.

There was a light out of the corner of his eye and he turned from the sky back to the ghostly superhero lying crumpled on the ground. Only it wasn't his fair-haired hero lying before him, but someone he never would have imagined. Someone he couldn't even begin to envision in a hero's role.

"Fenton?!"

-

(freak-out ensues)

"Okay, okay. Breath Baxter." Dash stopped his pacing in the middle of the alleyway to take a deep breath and try to calm himself. "Oh god! I've been harassing a ghost!" It wasn't working.

"Oh man, I can't believe this. Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom, two in one. Well…" He resumed his pacing. "It's kinda not that hard to picture, now that I think about it. They do kinda look the same, and they sound exactly alike too, I noticed that once, uhhg, I cannot believe I just dismissed it like I did. Oh man, he's gonna pound me!" Ironic choice of words, but he was too scared shitless to appreciate it, he couldn't help it.

He looked back over at the unconscious teen, lying in the exact same spot… Maybe he should move him somewhere before continuing his frenzied rant. He could get sick. Did ghosts get sick? Was Danny Fenton really a ghost? He seemed flesh and blood before, oh god **blood**! "Stop it," he pounded a fist on his forehead, "just…stop thinking." If only he could. If only he could be like every other popular teen at school and just be completely ignorant and stupid.

"Okay, so Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom." He paused, déjà vu anyone?? Shaking his head he oppressed the thought that he knew this before…so long ago. No, if he so much as suspected Fenton of being his oh so wonderful, could do no wrong idol he wouldn't have so much as spoken out against him, let alone shove him into lockers on an almost daily basis. So where…

"Uhhg, I can't do this. How could he let me do all those things to him and not retaliate?! He could have done something, anything!" On some second level of thinking he recalled Fenton's constant and often embarrassing pranks and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips, though his more dominant train of thoughts kept his awareness too busy and those odd little memories slipped through the railing unnoticed.

With a sigh Dash squatted down by Danny Fenton again. Strange, how obvious the resemblance was now, with Danny still in the black hazzmat suit with the rubbery white gloves that were a little slippery when you were holding them, most commonly dangling from some high altitude place like the Fenton's window. Yeah, that memory got through. No wonder Danny had shrunk him again. Now it all made sense.

Actually a whole lot of things made sense when he attributed this newfound knowledge to his memories. Danny Fenton being Danny Phantom made everything all clear.

So…maybe Danny wasn't going to kill him. After all, he was still alive after four years of torment. Why would Danny suddenly decide to kill him when he started to be nice? Well aside from him knowing the secret, uh oh, should he just run away and pretend he never saw anything? But that would leave him all alone, and he couldn't in good conscience just abandon the unconscious teen.

Dash looked at Danny's face, always so pale, almost too pale. It wasn't really noticeable when Danny wore those white shirts, but with the dark suit and the black hair, he looked sickly, and the dark circles under his eyes, no doubt from sleepless nights fighting ghosts…and the bruises…and the broken, no, the sprained arm.

"Was it all because of ghosts?"

The terrified nausea returned, swamped with guilt, stirring around in his gut like an eggbeater. Now he knew what the principal had meant when she had told him about teen suicide. He didn't have a clue as to what had been going on in Fenton's life. Danny Phantom had protected them, all of them, had fought with all his might, risked his life for everyone in the damned ignorant City of Amity Park and what did they show in return? An enormous bounty on his head, his own parents chasing after him, bullying around every corner from someone whose supposed to be his biggest fan, and, now that Dash thought hard about it, his freshmen-year girlfriend trying to annihilate him. And that was only what he knew.

He felt, no…he knew that if he were in Danny's place he would have snapped long ago, and he was slightly afraid because he didn't know if Danny would be the kind that hurt his self, or hurt others. He worried about that, but looking down on the teen now, in his weak and vulnerable state, he just couldn't see Danny doing any of that.

"He looks so…" Dash couldn't think of the word. Tired, hurt, defenseless…peaceful…? "Unconscious." The word slipped out simply to fill the silence and he felt a smile crinkle the corners of his eyes, though his lips stayed pursed together in thought. A thought flickered through his head, just something humorous to relieve the tension building up inside him.

He wished he had a stick to poke the kid with…

-

Danny slowly drifted back to consciousness, lost somewhere in the darkness before reality drew the mind back from the real of dreams. Not that he had dreamed, or he didn't remember dreaming. He actually didn't remember anything, it was like his brain had misplaced everything, or he had been misplaced, but he didn't question his mind in those few moments of ignorant bliss; he didn't remember anything so he didn't know there were things he had forgotten. He just drifted along, lost in the darkness of his psyche.

-

Dash finally calmed his strained nerves and, shaking off the need to poke him, picked Danny up to take him….somewhere. Where would he go? He couldn't go home, that was too far. Where did Danny live again? Not far, it couldn't be far. They needed someplace safe, somewhere Dash could look and see if there were any serious injuries, not that he would know.

He shook his head, he should know the city up and down, but he had never really bothered with this part of town. It was dull, few things for kids and even fewer for teenagers, all old people stuff…He needed someplace safe. An abandoned warehouse maybe? Yeah, he could just find one of those conveniently placed in the one place adults actually took care of. Stupid restored buildings.

Dash stopped his internal agonizing long enough to see that he had almost stepped out into traffic, a point well proven when the car passing by honked to get him back onto the sidewalk. It worked, and he stepped back up from the black tar pit that was the road. He didn't mind waiting; it wasn't that hard to hold Danny up, which surprised him because…he was so light. Really light and Dash was used to people feeling light to him, he was rather strong, but Danny didn't…he just felt…it was as though he barely rested in his arms. Weightless, like he wasn't really there.

But Danny was there, in his arms. He could feel him pressed against his chest as he walked; completely limp like a sleeping child, but still there. So why was he so light? Dash bit his lower lip in worry, wondering if on top of everything else Danny was anorexic. He was rather thin…and pale. Very pale.

Back onto the busy part of town Dash felt a little awkward being seen carrying a body in his arms, people passing by glanced curiously at him, and some stared openly, but it didn't seem like anybody recognized the body just yet. This was just fine with him. He was very glad to actually know his surroundings. Stupid him, running after that damn cat all the way back to that alley.

'….Cat….where did that cat go? Stupid stray, stupid idiot, cold, wet creature preying on my love of furry cuddly baby things! Uhhhrg. If it hadn't…hadn't….'

"I wouldn't have been able to help Danny…." he whispered out loud, he just couldn't find anything to focus his anger on, and that kind of pissed him off..

"Mroow." The small vocalization in his ear made him jump and almost drop the unconscious form in his arms.

"Oh god, what are you doing here?" he said and a rather rounded old lady, probably only sixty, looked at him wide-eyed before glancing nervously to the "do not walk" sign, willing it to change.

The itty bitty black kitty, however, sat perched on his shoulder like a parrot as though it were the most normal creature on earth, and not the size of a black rat. Dash didn't even remember feeling it climb up him. He stared at it, their eyes locked, his narrowed accusingly at the mysterious creature, said 'mysterious creature' just blinked, then hiked a leg and began bathing it's romp.

Dash made a disgusted face, shrugging the shoulder it sat on, the feline tipped and had to abandon its beatification to keep from falling. Claws dug into the shoulder and Dash bit his lip in pain.

"Stupid cute aggravating pest." Dash mumbled through his grimace, then crossed the street in hurried strides with the big old lady, she had to be a foot taller than him.

-

The abyss surrounding him rolled and shifted, pulling him back towards the world just outside his eyelids. A weightless feeling overcame his body as he felt himself being lifted, invisible hands reaching through the gloom to carry him up from the eternal night.

Slowly, but without struggle, Danny gave into the feeling of those warm hands wrapped around him and allowed himself to be pulled from his everlasting emptiness and return to true existence.

-

He felt the body begin to stir in his arms and watched as an intense glow twisted in the center of Danny's stomach, growing up and down in the form of two blinding rings of energy. They traveled over his bare arms, as he had wrapped Danny up in his jacket, and he flinched, not sure what the strange ghostly lights would do, but it just moved through him, leaving only the odd sensation of sun-warmed skin., and in the frigid weather he was standing in at the moment it was more than welcome. Like that particular part of his being had sat near the fireplace while the rest of him faced the freezer.

"D-Dash?"

Danny clutched the jacket tighter around his newly warmed body as the rings finished their journey and dissipated above his head and just below his feet. "Could you…." Danny addressed Dash again, snapping the larger teen out of his trance-like state. "Put me down please?"

Dash stood there a moment and stared at the uncomfortable Danny Phantom in his arms, before shakily responding. He set him down gently on his feet, not saying a thing, and just backed up a step. His hair was back to being white...so did he transform back into a ghost? Did he always wear the outfit; did Danny have to change quickly like other superheroes?

By now there were a lot of people staring, because it had become obvious Danny Phantom was there. There were murmurs among the crowd, but no one seemed to move in a threatening manner toward the two, in fact no one moved at all.

Even the two young men, the center of attention, Dash Baxter and Danny Phantom, didn't move. A heavy awkward tension had settled over the street, slowing traffic and people alike.

All was silent, save for the purring from the dwarf cat currently rubbing against the side of Dash's face.

Dash sneezed.

Danny stifled a giggle.

The tension eased.

-

Danny felt woozy as he walked slowly alongside Dash. He didn't think he could fly yet and didn't want to risk it, besides he didn't want to just leave the teen after he pretty much saved his life.

So Danny walked beside Dash down the street towards his own home, ignoring the stares of the passing people. It had been nearly four years since he began his heroic profession, and many of the citizens had come to accept his presence in their lives.

Acceptance and acknowledgement, something he never thought would be his when he first started out.

Another wave of nausea washed over him and he wobbled a bit but covered it by reaching up for Grimalkin on Dash's shoulder who playfully swatted at his hand and darted across the back of Dash's neck to watch Danny from his other shoulder. Dash laughed.

"So what, do you know this fuzz ball?" Dash asked patting the tiny creature on the head. "He looks like he isn't old enough to be out of his mother's shadow."

"Yes I do know him unfortunately, he's m-" Danny snapped his mouth closed with a click of teeth. It wouldn't do to claim the cat as Danny Phantom's, not when its home was at Danny Fenton's. "He's full grown, actually, though he does look only a month old." He said, gritting his teeth and walking faster to keep up with Dash's long strides, he felt completely exhausted.

"How do you know that?" Dash asked, inconspicuously probing for tiny slips of information, ties between the Phantom and Fenton. He knew the cat now, it was the one Danny had carried home yesterday after the accident. He remembered thinking such a tiny kitten should not have been out alone.

If there was any doubt before, though he wasn't so dense as to actually doubt, there was none now. Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one in the same. Now the question was, should he let Danny know he knew his secret, or keep it to himself?

He looked back and saw Danny's arm shaking, the one that Danny Fenton had in a sling all that day. He wondered if it healed when he transformed, or whatever he did when he became a ghost, or if he had simply forgone wearing the sling because it would be an obvious week spot and a miniscule, but still creditable, link between the two Danny's.

"I-I uh…I don't know. I guess I just feel it. He doesn't…doesn't carry himself like a kitten. When he walks it's not all shaky and stumbling like a month old kitten, and about that age he should still have blue eyes, but his are amber, see. I think he's just a really small cat. Premature, maybe a dwarf? A genetic anomaly?" Danny's shaking increased, but there were no people around to notice as they had reached a more rural area and nearly everyone was in bed. No one but Dash to see.

He was pale and covered by a light sheen of perspiration, the rain soaked jacket giving no warmth to his freezing body. His eyes, normally a very bright green, were dull from exhaustion and his step, which was shaky to begin with but Dash hadn't commented, had become something more of a stumble.

The cat on his shoulder nudged his face a bit, as though telling him 'get on with it.' But that nudge wasn't needed as Dash was already slipping his arm around Danny's waist and lifting him up again.

Danny let out a squeak when he felt himself suddenly lifted from the ground. The warmth of Dash's arms seeped through the fabric of his suit like heated water and felt feverish against his cool skin. The wet jacket provided some level of protection from the contact, but it was a feeble barrier and so loose that as Danny struggled it hiked up around his torso and slipped off one shoulder.

"Put me down you asshole, I can walk!" Danny hissed, his throat felt sore and he couldn't shout, but oh he wanted to.

"Are you kidding me? You look like you can barely stand. So shut up and enjoy the ride, this is the last time I'm carrying you Fenton."

"Wh-what?!" Danny shouted, followed by a fit of coughs.

"Man, will you give your body a break, next you'll be hacking up blood." Dash adjusted his hold on Danny who felt just as light as before, but now instead of being limp he lay stiff with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at him. "I said you can barely stand so I'm carrying you. Got it?"

"You called me Fenton." Danny said low and threatening.

"Yeah, so?" Dash countered, upset inside that he let it slip but not going to deny it. He wasn't that much of a fool. "I always call you that."

"What makes you think….how did you….when did….ah forget it!" Danny slumped, turning away from him to pout, which looked rather comical since he was still being carried bridal style. And to emphasize the hilarity of the situation, Dash laughed.

"Shut up! I can't believe you. What are you planning on doing huh? Hold it over my head? Make me do your homework for the rest of our high school year? Demand favors? Or are you just going to throw all blackmail out and spread the news all over? I bet a million people are willing to offer enormous sums of money for the inside scoop of Danny Phantom's true identity!"

During the list of possibilities Danny started looking less and less angry and more depressed. Dash didn't feel all that hot either, not if his hero actually thought he'd roll over on him.

"I'm not going to tell anyone. I wouldn't. Do you honestly think after everything you've done, for me and hundreds of other citizens, that I would just give you up to those…those people?"

Danny looked guilty for a moment before his stern pout returned, he never looked at Dash. "You've never given me reason to believe otherwise." He snapped.

"What?" Dash asked incredulous, "off course I have. All those times we fought together, the times I've helped you out. You should know to trust me." Dash stopped and looked around. In the heat of the argument he had forgot to watch where he was going and got turned around. They now stood on some street corner in a neighborhood Dash, again, wasn't familiar with. In a frustrated huff he sat straight down on the curb, earning another startled noise from Danny. The smaller teen glared at him before trying to move off, he was now sitting in Dash's lap.

"That's only one side of me!" Danny protested, getting Dash's attention again. "Sure you were nice to Danny Phantom." He said, trying to get out of both Dash's arms and off his lap, but Dash's grip on him remained firm and in the condition he was in, it was like falling in a blown up sumo suit. Nearly impossible. "But the hero is only half of who I am." Finally Danny just gave up and slumped down again, this time looking Dash straight in the eye.

"Only…half." Dash was startled when he saw… Danny's eyes were blue, the kind of deep blue eyes that Danny Fenton had. Could his eyes change color?

"Yes." Danny's face softened, and he looked away again. "You were often friendly, admirable, and courageous around Danny Phantom, but you were rarely so gracious with Danny Fenton. To that part of me, you were nothing but a bully. On the occasion a partner or even an ally, but still a bully, and just when I'd begin to like you, just when I'd think maybe you'd change. When I'd think that we could be friends, you'd do something to Danny Fenton that would utterly destroy all those hopes."

"Like with Skulker…" Dash mumbled, but Danny caught it.

"Yeah…" He didn't look back at Dash, though both wished he would. "I really enjoyed working beside you then and during the whole pirate parental abduction thing, and a million other times over the years. But you'd always, often immediately afterward, do something that would just wash every single one of those memories away." Danny tensed. "I mean I fell off the freaking ship! Did you once ask if I was alright? If I was hurt? No, you socked me in my goddamn arm and said I'd abandoned you lot! Yeah, I sure felt loved." He huffed, looking a little over exerted from the conversation.

"I…I'm sorry. I didn't think…I didn't know you were-" Danny cut him off.

"You shouldn't have to know I was a freaking ghost superhero to show a little sympathy to a classmate, who stuck his neck out to help you all save your parents instead of just going in and saving his own, which I totally could have done by the way. Just my parents, and Jazz, and no one else's. But I didn't. AND I got in trouble for using my Mom and Dad's equipment! You know how long I was grounded! I even had to pick up after YOUR stupid Party. AT MY HOUSE! I DIDN'T EVEN GET INVITED TO A PARTY AT MY OWN HOUSE!" Danny shook, tears collecting at the edges of his eyes. He was breathing hard now, deep shaking gulps of air, as if he was drowning and would go back under water at any moment. He coughed, the shouting hurting his already sore throat. The damn Ghostly Wail left him with a gravelly voice for days on end, man he hated having to use it.

Dash didn't know what to say, didn't think at all that all those things he did were affecting Danny this much. He just didn't think. God he was an idiot. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how to amend the shattered and broken relationship they'd had all through high school. So he asked the only thing that could get by the lump in his throat.

"Where to now? Manson's house?"

Danny's head snapped up so fast he caught Dash on the chin. They both gave a sharp yelp and pulled back a bit, Danny was still breathing really hard and the sound came out like a kind of bark, he uncrossed his arms to rub his forehead, Dash moved his jaw back and forth, since he didn't want to let go of Danny, afraid the ghost boy would try and fly away. Ignoring the fact that he could just faze through his arms, Danny didn't seem to remember that particular power at the moment either.

"Sam's probably still at that stupid social function with her parents, and Tuckers with her so that's out too." Danny said, not even going to ask why Dash thought Sam would know about his powers. They spent so much time together, it was obvious.

"If you would put me down I can get home from…from here." Danny blinked a few times, unsure why everything was going blurry." His breathing wasn't returning to normal, in fact he felt like there wasn't enough oxygen around them, he was going to suffocate, why was it so hard to breath?

Hard to breath, just like before in the alley, but this time he was taking in air, big fast gulps of air, but it wasn't enough. Wasn't…..enough.

Dash was about to retort that he wasn't going to let Danny just walk on home in the condition he was in, but the way Danny looked at that moment killed the words, fast, with a big sharp knife.

"Fenton? Fenton are you okay?" Danny didn't answer, just kept breathing, heavy quick breaths, like he had ran a marathon. Dash didn't know what to do; he was trembling almost as much as the body in his arms. Quickly he stood, trying to think of some way to help.

"What to do, what to do." He practically hopped from foot to foot trying to think. "Danny, are you alright? Please be alright. God, I don't know what to do." And then the trembling stopped.

Dash looked down, down at the relaxed body in his arms. He looked calm now, peaceful, sleeping. Dash panicked. Did he pass out? Did he die? Could ghosts die? Was it his fault, did he make him too upset, too stressed out?

There was a low snarl in his ear and he turned to the side just in time to get a sharp set of claws raked across his nose. He stumbled back, which was odd because he couldn't stumble away from something on his shoulder. The cat growled and pawed at his face again, just barely unsheathing its claws this time. A warning.

Dash shook his head and started running back the way he had come, trying to see street signs in the dim light of the far spaced streetlights. He practically jogged in place when he had to stop, running up and down streets, cutting through alleys, panicking. What was wrong, he had to find Danny's home. Danny said he could get home from there. Danny knew the streets. God Danny was DIEING!

He was just about to start shouting for help, which he realized with eternal self loathing, he should have done to begin with, when he saw the enormous Fenton Works sign and the various other metallic structures jutting out of the old brick building.

With a rush of pure glee he ran full speed the last few blocks, as he had twisted around the neighborhood like a mouse in a maze, and took the steps in leaps, banging on the door with his fist until he heard a muffled shout and a click as the latch was pulled back.

And it was that moment, as the door cracked open; Dash realized that if Danny's parents didn't know about his secret he was practically condemning him to the autopsy table. All those threats, those various weapons being pointed with deadly precision, did they know it was their son? Would they hurt him before Dash could explain?

It was too late, the door was opening.

-

Jazz sleepily rubbed her eyes, too groggy to really realize she had opened the door without seeing who was there. An unnatural bout of stupidity on her part, but she was sick, and tired, and anxious to get better before her next semester started.

All that was forgotten when she saw who was on her doorstep this late at night.

"D-Dash?!" Jazz stared wide eyed at the panting teen in front of her, then down to the unconscious body in his arms. "Oh my god, Danny! What happened?" Jazz stared up at Dash's startled expression before straightening, realizing the obvious slip, and attempted to correct it. "Why, why did you bring him here? You know my parents want to capture him. What, are you trying to get some kind of reward or something?" She narrowed her eyes in mistrust, despite the overwhelming need to grab her baby brother and hold him close.

Dash straightened too when he heard her question, eyes hardening. Why did everyone think so little of him? Did she honestly believe he would turn her little brother over to scientists for dissection? Even if those scientists were their parents. But he saw the concern for Danny in her eyes that brief moment before common sense returned to her. She knew, and now he knew. And that is exactly what he would say.

"I know."

And Jazz's stern, mistrusting face melted into grief and worry and she flung the door open, reaching towards him to grab her baby brother. Cradling his head she brushed aside the sweat-soaked bangs, feeling the hot skin against her fingertips. "What happened?" She said softly, a question not really directed at anyone.

"We…he was attacked by ghosts and…us..we were running…he passed out, but he woke up. He was screaming at me, I made him angry and it's my fault. He passed out. He was breathing so heavily, he wouldn't stop shaking and I didn't know what to do. He wouldn't wake up. He wouldn't answer me." Dash was shaking himself, and his own breath was coming in ragged gasps.

Jazz directed him inside, hushing him, saying he could explain later, her mature, motherly instincts kicking in when she saw Dash's distraught state. She checked heartbeat and his breathing, and when she found both were still doing what they were supposed to, sent Dash up to Danny's room, marveling at how gently the boy carried her brother, even taking care not to jar him when climbing the stairs.

"Mom and Dad went out on a call earlier, chances are it's a prank and they'll be back soon. We don't want them coming in and seeing him. Into his room, Danny has some automated lock on it, I don't really know the key but I have an idea."

Jazz's idea turned out to be useless, she had figured that several key words or phrases would unlock the door, but Danny didn't trust the chance that someone would accidentally say them. The only way in was through his back window, or anywhere in the house if you could faze through solid objects and fly. Unfortunately neither of the humans could, and as Jazz's voice got more frantic and the words more ridiculous Grimalkin slipped unnoticed from Dash's shoulder and fazed through the wall beside the door.

As much as Grimalkin would have loved to jump up and bang his head on the door several times before finally hitting the switch that would unlock the door, as the lock was on the doorknob and the doorknob was very high, he didn't think there was much use for fun wastes of time and simply reshaped himself, flying up and unlocking the door in a form more suitable then a cat.

The lock clicked just as Dash and Jazz turned away to bring him to her room, a much less safer place but better then the hallway. Dash turned back at the sound and watched the door slide in a bit.

"It's open!" He cried, pushing aside the heavy wooden door he stepped in, feeling a cold air rush past him like walking from outside into a place with air-conditioning. He shivered, glancing at the window but it was shut. "Weird." He mumbled, then hurried over to the bed, Jazz right behind him.

It hadn't taken them long to figure out that Danny was just fine, cold, feverish, and unconscious, but just fine. Or so said Jazz who, after years of ghost fighting and her bizarre parents, had become quite familiar with first aid.

Jazz reassured him that everything was fine and that he could go home. "It was probably just hyperventilation," she had said. Instead of following her instructions, however, he called his parents and told them he was staying over. Jazz looked at him quizzically before shrugging and walking off.

Dash set the phone back on the receiver, his hand shaking. He wondered how often such things happened, Jazz didn't seem all that shaken after she assessed that Danny was fine, but Dash wasn't so sure. How could she be certain? What if he had some internal injury? What if he didn't wake up? What if his fever got worse?

He certainly wasn't helping matters by worrying, but he couldn't help it.

He stepped back into Danny's room. It was dark, and terribly messy, as if the last time it had been clean was when the inhabitants moved in. He couldn't blame Danny though, with his hectic schedule he probably barely had time to change, let alone put everything in a hamper. No wonder he went to school looking like he just threw on whatever looked cleanest on the floor, he probably did.

He sighed and pulled up Danny's discarded computer chair, laying on its side by the closet for some reason, fully intending to watch over Danny until he woke, all night if need be.

Jazz came in a few minutes later with a large blanket and a pillow, standing in the doorway as Dash collected Danny's discarded clothing and put them in a wicker basket off in the corner. "Having fun?" She asked.

Dash turned around and scowled. "So I got bored, I hate clutter and I figured I'd pass the time with a small activity." He shut the hamper lid and proceeded to straighten the books and papers strewn across the desk.

"Danny's room is hardly what I'd consider a 'small activity,' but if you really wish to undertake such an arduous task, be my guest." She said with a smile. "Buuuuut if you get tired and decide to partake in the popular teenage pastime, sleep, I've brought you a pillow and blanket." She presented the two to him, practically glowing in amusement.

His expression softened just a bit and he took them, quietly thanking her and placing them on the empty computer chair. Jazz just smiled and skipped off to her room. He wondered how the hell she could be so damn chipper when her brother lay unconscious on the bed right beside him. "This kind of stuff must happen often." He muttered, feeling a bit bothered by the fact.

After two hours the room was clean, except for vacuuming and dusting, which would have happened had he not accidentally mistaken the Fenton Xtractor for a vacuum cleaner, causing him to mistrust every cleaning appliance in the room. In the end Dash felt tired, but accomplished, and had learned a few new things about his smaller companion, like the fact that he had a huge pile of model spaceships left unopened in his closet, waiting for the spare time it would take to put them together, and that he kept Fenton ghost weapons in every unlikely place he could think of, including the underwear drawer, which he stumbled on while looking for a place to put Danny's pile of finished, but unturned in homework. Also, there was a Fenton Crammer taped to the underside of the computer desk, an unnerving discovery on his part, and a Fenton Anti-Creep Stick in the closet with a couple of Fenton baseballs, that could just be ordinary baseballs but could also be some other dangerous weapons.

Shaking his head he smiled, sure that Danny probably more than needed a few weapons handy in case of any unscheduled ghost attacks, and pleased he now knew where some where…just in case. "That's a small relief."

'And speaking of relief…' Dash thought, glancing at the bed with the still knocked out Danny Phantom. 'I gotta use the bathroom.'

He backed out of the room slowly, afraid that if he turned his back for one second Danny would disappear. He had been in the room the whole time, never leaving, and continuously glancing at Danny, in case there was any change…would two short minutes in the bathroom matter?

He straightened, he was being stupid, he was just going to be down the hall…nothing was going to happen. Still, he left the door open and bolted to the bathroom, intent on taking as little time as possible.

Two short minutes…

It seemed to be just the right amount of time for Dash to miss a lot.

-

Danny ached, everywhere. His back, his chest, his arm, his head, limbs he couldn't even name, they all hurt, and the darkness, the sweet, blissful darkness that surrounded him, all receding, he tried to grab it, to hold it to him like a warm blanket being snatched away, but it slipped through his fingers like ink. He didn't know what was left, but it wasn't his darkness, it wasn't even a color. It was emptiness, a terrible, cold emptiness dragging him back to reality and the pain that rested within each of his limbs like a parasite, devouring his flesh, pounding in his head and spinning the world around him like a globe.

It took a second to realize that it wasn't emptiness that surrounded him, but his own room, it just looked a bit different.

Slowly, ever so carefully, he lifted himself up, wincing when he put pressure on his arm. God he hurt. But his room…his room was clean, and his chair, it was by his bed and there was a folded blanket and a pillow on top of it. Was someone there, Sam or maybe Tucker?

Whoever it was they weren't there now, the room was empty. Grimalkin, his ever so faithful cat, growled at him from his position on his lap as he got up. It was great to feel loved.

He looked at his clock but couldn't decipher the blurry glowing colors that stated the time, so he just walked…okay hobbled, over to the open door to see who was up. It was dark out…what happened?

Just as he was about to exit the room someone appeared from around the corner, someone big.

"Dash?" Danny whispered, his throat felt sore…so sore. Like when he used…the Ghostly Wail…

Everything came crashing back to him, the ghosts, the rain, the lightning, Dash figuring him out…yelling…suffocating…It all hit him the exact same time Dash's arms enveloped him, pulling him close. The embrace was so gentle, his hold so firm, it was like Danny was this little blown glass figurine that might break if he held to tightly, but fall if he let go.

But Danny didn't fall, he tensed, unsure of what to do. His face burned against Dash's cool shoulder, where before he had felt like ice when Dash's warm skin touched him, now he felt like fire.

"D-Dash?" Danny asked hoarsely, certain his face was red. He wasn't often hugged by other guys, least of all Dash Baxter.

"I was scared." Dash said softly, earning a startled muffled noise from Danny. "I didn't know if you were going to wake up, I didn't know what to do. I was so terrified."

Slowly, weakly Danny placed his hands against Dash's chest, gently pushing him back to look up at him. There was something shiny about Dash's eyes but the room was dark and after he blinked a few times it was gone, so Danny just blamed it on his fatigue.

"It's okay Dash…" Danny heard himself say. "I'm fine."

Dash pulled further away, his hands holding Danny by the shoulders, scrutinizing him, looking up and down as if to make sure nothing was wrong. "Danny?" He asked. "When did you change your clothes?"

Danny looked down at himself, seeing that he was, in fact, back in his normal outfit. He was once again Danny Fenton.

-

Danny watched silently from his bed as Dash rummaged around his room.

"Here," Dash threw a pair of his pajamas, the one with childish spacemen pictures on it, into his lap. "Change into these and get to bed." Danny wanted to die. They were his favorite sleeping clothes, but what an embarrassment.

He looked from the pajamas to Dash, who was standing over him like a stern babysitter, and rolled his eyes. "This is silly." He declared, but stood and began stripping his wet clothes off, though he wasn't certain how his cloths always got affected when he was in uniform.

Dash's face flushed red and he quickly turned his back to the nude teen.

"I'm fine Dash; I just over exerted myself earlier is all." Danny left the last few buttons at the top of his shirt undone; he didn't feel like putting in the effort. His hands rested in fists on his hips and he glared at the back of Dash's head. "You can turn around now, I'm decent."

Dash turned to face Danny's cold stare, arms still crossed, face still red, chest puffed out like a threatened desert iguana. "Bed." He was trying to be intimidating even though they both knew Danny would have no problem beating him.

"You can go home now Dash." Danny crossed his own arms. "I'm fine." His eyes began to glow a soft green to show his displeasure. "And you're parents are probably worried."

Dash wasn't unsettled, and was certainly in no mood for more arguments with his so called hero. "I already called my parents after I brought you to your room." Dash said, not acknowledging Danny's other statements. "I told them I was staying over."

"Yeah, sure. Just make yourself at home. I don't mind!" Danny flinched when his clenched fists made his arm ache. "I mean it not like its freaking DANGEROUS or anything!" He sat back down on the bed with a huff, not facing Dash but instead glaring at his alarm clock which proudly stated 2:37 am.

"Is that your problem?' Dash asked, easing down on the bed beside him. "You think those…things will come back? That I'll get involved and get hurt?" Danny didn't answer and Dash sighed. "I can handle myself just fine Fenton, I think I've proven that before. Besides in your condition I think you're more likely to get hurt them me" The brunette didn't look at him, and the image of Danny facing those horrors alone again wouldn't leave his mind, it unnerved him, and that was irritating. Clenching his teeth he gripped Danny's shoulders and forced him to face him. "Look, what happened today…I don't want it to happen again okay? It scared me…

"I…I didn't know what to do, there was nothing I could do. I was terrified; I told you that already, I thought you were dying. I thought I was going to lose you." Danny looked like he was going to retort but he quickly interjected. "And I don't mean I was scared I'd lose my hero. When I was running around, practically in little circles like in those weird cartoons, I didn't think of you as Danny Phantom, I, I didn't see the difference anymore. Before I thought you two were separate, but now. Now I can't bear to see you out there fighting. I see you, frail and burdened, I can't stand it.

"Don't ask me why, because I don't get it myself…but I'm worried...worried about you, the real you." Danny's behavior earlier, the incident, the whole damn situation upset him. It played over and over in his head. "So don't-don't send me away. I won't leave you, okay? Because I can't…I can't do it, I won't do it. You need rest and protection right now, and I'm going to make sure you get it."

Danny just sat there a moment, searching Dash's eyes for answers, some kind of hit, a clue, a reason for this new strange behavior. "I don't like to be bullied." He finally answered. "Especially not in my own house, or about things I've been doing for almost four years."

Dash smiled, loosening his grasp on Danny's shoulders and releasing the breath he had been holding. "I'm just concerned."

"There are other ways to show it." Danny didn't look away this time. "My life…my life gets real hard sometimes. I can't rely on anyone but Sam, Tuck, and Jazz and it hurts to always get them involved, put them in danger. I can't even confide in my parents, the two people who could actually handle this and help me, and I can't just give in because so many people would get hurt." Despite his earlier declarations of strength and wellbeing his eyes looked bloodshot and wet.

Dash pulled Danny into an embrace, softly hushing him. The angle was awkward and Dash had no prior experience in comforting someone. So he just sat there, quietly holding Danny and hoping that, in some way, he was making something better.

Danny didn't object to the embrace, but let himself be held, cradled against a warm chest as all the doubts, all the fears, all the damn responsibilities swam around in his mind and rested like an anvil on his chest, constricting his breathing. He figured Dash would say something, some sappy half hearted sympathetic tripe that was supposed to sound comforting and make him feel better, but he didn't. He just sat there, holding him, strong and silent, offering comfort and security.

Slowly, for just one moment, Danny let the obligations of a hero slip from his shoulders. Just once, in such a long time, Danny wanted to be the one protected, held and guarded from all the bad things in the world. Sheltered from harm.

He didn't cry, not one of the tears threatening the corners of his eyes slipped down his cheek, but he still felt better. For the first time in years he felt, safe, despite the terror and worry, the threat of new, more powerful ghosts, and his own dilemmas.

"Alright," Danny laughed softly into Dash's shoulder. "So maybe I am tired." He pulled back a bit, wiping the corners of his eyes to just to be sure no tears escaped.

Dash closed his eyes tightly a moment, not wanting to let go, not when he wasn't sure Danny wasn't going to just disappear. The physical contact they had felt like the only link to him, like if he did let go…something terrible would happen. But he returned Danny's smile. "You get some rest," he said, "We'll talk more about it tomorrow. We have all weekend to chat."

Danny didn't argue, after all the insisting that he was fine, that he wasn't tired, that he didn't need Dash there to watch him, he just let Dash ease him back onto the bed and settle the covers over him. Dash's face hovered before him for a while as he adjusted everything until it was all perfect, not a wrinkle in sight. Danny felt like Dash was making the bed around him, but he didn't mind. He was too sleepy to mind.

Dash grabbed the blanket and pillow jazz had given him and prepared to make himself comfortable on the floor. When he pulled away, disappearing from the ghost boy's field of vision something in him tightened and Danny called the teen's name out before he could stop himself.

"Dash?" Danny's tired voice floated over to the blonde.

Dash turned around to look at him, but he didn't know what he had wanted to say so he closed his eyes quickly, pretending to have dozed off. He tried to keep from smiling, knowing this was all so juvenile, he couldn't.

"Yes?' He asked, Danny didn't answer. Leaning over the bed Dash realized Danny had fallen asleep, a peaceful, blissful sleep, with a small smile on his face. He hoped Danny would dream something nice, something simple and ordinary, without ghosts or monsters or bullies, without a hero's obligation.

With a smile of his own he readjusted the covers one last time before pressing a gentle kiss to Danny's temple.

Danny felt the covers around him move just slightly once again telling him Dash either was too tired to notice he was faking, or just didn't care. Then he felt a light weight pressed against his temple. It took an instant to realize it was Dash's lips. This confused him, but at the same time a strange kind of electrical fizzle tingled down in his stomach. Like he ate some PopRocks whole and they didn't start until about halfway down his throat.

Dash pulled away rather abruptly, spine erect, eyes wide and staring down at the smiling sleeping person snuggled beneath the covers. Though the kiss only lasted a moment Danny could feel the shift of air as he snapped up, obviously confused about what he'd just done. Why had he…

Shaking his head Dash returned to his own sleeping area, slightly disturbed. He must be really tired as well.

Yeah…that was the reason.

~*~*~

Dash was having a very nice dream, though he wouldn't admit it under painful torture. Still, it was nice, filled with long sunny days of holding hands and touching noses, the sappy romantic garbage that made up most of his ideas of love, due to his excessive viewing of old romance movies. If he knew it was a dream, because it just seemed too wonderful, he hardly would want out of it, despite the fact that it disturbed and traumatized the more rational part of his brain.

Alas, all good things must end, often at the height of its goodness, and much to the dismay of his fuzzy, dreamy self and the absolute joy of…every other part of his mind, he slowly cracked his eyes open to view…

A tiny cat butt…

Grimalkin had taken up residence on his forehead and was currently swatting at his nose. It was an interesting way to wake, but he'd rather get back to his dream. Stifling a sneeze Dash attempted to dislodge the nuisance from his noggin while unraveling himself from his blanket, silently vowing to talk on a cell phone, watch TV, and play videogames until the radiation and everything else rotted whatever part of his cranium sheltered his disturbing and often perverted thoughts.

Finally managing to remove himself from his little-too-friendly sleeping companion, the blanket not the cat, he stood to check on Danny, Grimalkin having moved to rest like a pelt on his head.

The only thing on the bed, however, was a rumpled bedspread and discarded pajamas. Dash glared at the clothing in disdain, certain there was no reason Danny couldn't have put them in the hamper this time. So rather than going down to greet, or find and pummel, the smaller teen he collected the clothing, straightened the bed, folded his own blanket, and straightened up whatever else in the room seemed out of order until he calmed down.

By then the house was brighter, though no windows faced the east and even if they did the only view would be of the building next door. Dash stood out in the hallway trying to figure it out for a moment before just shrugging it off, the smell of fresh cooked breakfast fogging all other thoughts.

The cat on his shoulder purred softly, claws gently raking through his hair as it sniffed the air in apparent glee. Dash tried to look up at it, with the displeasing results one would expect when trying to look at a cat on one's head. Finally just giving in he walked downstairs to see who else was up.

By the time he reached the kitchen door his mouth was watering and his stomach was making impatient noises, which he hoped no one else would be able to hear. The smell of blueberries and syrup filled his nostrils and he breathed deeply through his nose, feeling like he had never smelled anything so wonderful. Peeking around the corner into the kitchen he spied Danny in an apron standing over the stove, his back turned.

Something in his gut wiggled, a strange pleasant feeling, and he wondered about the saying "Butterflies in your stomach," but shook it off, blaming it on his hunger. Still, it was oddly nice to see Danny cooking breakfast. That is until Danny, lost in his own mind wandering, tried to pick up the skillet with his bad arm, dropping the heavy cast iron cooking equipment and a half cooked blueberry pancake on the kitchen floor. As fate and other momentarily unmentioned powers of the universe often decree the skillet hit Danny's shin and the pancake landed uncooked-side-down on the floor.

At Danny's cry of pain Dash swung around the corner and was at his side griping his upper arm at such a speed it would have surprised them both, had they not been occupied with the tiny cooking disaster.

"Are you alright?" Dash asked, receiving a glare from Danny that would have appeared threatening if he wasn't sitting on the kitchen floor clutching his shin and wearing his mother's apron.

"Sorry I just…its…I guess I…" Dash stumbled through his limited vocabulary while trying to help Danny up without having him put pressure on the aching limb.

"Yeah, yeah I know," Danny said with a smirk, accepting Dash's help and limping over to a chair, "Standard question."

"Guess you get it a lot." Dash scratched the base of his neck before glancing at the mess on the floor.

"Not so much anymore, but about a year or two ago, yeah a lot," Danny smiled nervously, "I sure got into some trouble back then. I wasn't as strong as I am now and a lot more people wanted a piece of me." It was weird talking to Dash like he was, totally not normal, but was anything in his life normal?

"So…um you just sit there and stuff while I clean up." Dash picked up the fallen skillet and put it in the sink, then picked up the sponge from the counter and proceeded to wipe up the pancake batter splattered across the kitchen floor. Apparently he had just as much a problem discussing the superhero ghost life as Danny. The unsettling events of the previous night replayed in his mind and he didn't think he could handle a repeat.

"I already finished breakfast, that pancake was the last one so…um I guess the timing was okay. Better then dropping in earlier…" Danny stared at the big plate of blueberry pancakes sitting on the table alongside a plate of perfectly shaped beacon, steaming brown sausages, and some omelets. He couldn't look at Dash, cleaning up his mess on the floor and talking to him like he actually cared. It was all so strange…so incredibly freaky.

"Sheesh, how long where you up?" Dash was standing beside him now, drying his hands on a dishtowel and staring at the set table like it was one of the strange ghost weapons found pretty much anywhere in the house. As far as either of them knew Jack Fenton could have converted the table into some high-tech Fenton ghost repelling Frisbee that ultimately would look cool, have "Fenton" on it, but otherwise be useless.

"A few hours, I couldn't really sleep well, I kept waking up and such, finally around eight I made up my mind, changed, and came down to make breakfast." Danny chuckled halfheartedly.

Dash stopped Danny from rubbing his sore leg long enough to look at it, after folding the pant leg up just a bit he got a good look at the reddened flesh, whistling low "You'll most likely have yet another bruise to add to your collection." He said, running a hand over the skin. Danny's leg airs were silver, and soft. Like frog hair. For some reason he had never imagined Danny having leg hair…he just seemed so adolescent, despite the fact that he was almost an adult. Perhaps it was because his arms looked hairless, though now that he looked at it; it was just the same silver as his legs…

"Yeah, I seem to be a bit accident prone, but hey I was having such a lovely conversation with the pan I figured I'd introduce it to the rest of my body." Danny tried not to notice that Dash was running his hand up and down his leg, he had just been injured, and Dash was just trying to help was all.

Dash blinked, not quite following for a moment as he had been caught up in his own thinking. A bright red blush stole across his face when he realized he had been stroking Danny's skin, quickly he shoved the jeans back down into place, turning away from the inured teen he plopped down on the ground, staring at the linoleum in embarrassment. "Idiot," he tossed over his shoulder. "You're too clumsy. What were you thinking trying to pick up that pan with your bad arm? Honestly sometimes you're really stupid"

Danny's jaw clenched at the insult, and Dash's odd behavior. "Excuse me from being a bit lost in thought." He hissed down at the supposed grownup sitting on his kitchen floor like a pouting kid. "But if your memory extends as far as last night you might recall my life is really hard and I have a lot to think about. You actually knowing all this only adds to the drama and headache. I apologize that I was so caught up in worrying about you, and school, and these damn injuries, and trying to get your ass out of trouble and out of my hair that I spilled the breakfast I got up three hours ago to make for you!"

"Hey, what's all the yelling about?" Jazz entered the kitchen with the cautious tread of one well acquainted with Danny's emotional outbursts and the ghostly consequences they usually conveyed.

"Oh nothing, I just dropped the skillet while making breakfast and it hit my leg." Danny explained, waving his hand like a magician's assistant towards his shin.

"Another injury? Danny Mom and Dad will flip." The doorbell rang, cutting Jazz off mid-lecture, much to Danny's delight. While she was occupied with whoever was at the door Dash rose from his position on the floor.

"Look, Fenton." Danny wasn't looking at him. "Hey I said look!"

"Oh sorry, I thought that was just a figurative term for getting someone's attention." Danny leaned back in his chair, still refusing to turn his attention anywhere else but the stack of blueberry pancakes, certain that if he stared hard enough he could make them get up and dance. Ah the joys of being ghost.

"Okay, stop talking like that, and if you won't look at least listen then. Okay? I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to tell anyone, hell I won't even try and help and get in your way if you don't want me to." Dash didn't like the idea of fighting ghosts again, but he liked Danny fighting them in his condition even less. "But Lancer and the principal have boxed us together for who knows how long, they may even go so far as to change what few classes we don't have together to partner us up, so we're stuck." Okay, he could tell by the look on Danny's face that he didn't appreciate this predicament this new predicament.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Dash mentally shook himself, 'nice going Baxter, you really have a way with words.' With a deep breath he quickly summarized what had happened in the office before Dash had to collect Danny and bring him to the nurse.

Reaching out he grabbed Danny's hands, clasped in his lap. It startled Danny, causing him to look at Dash who was literally down on his knees in front of him. 'Well, one small accomplishment lets go for another.' "Look Danny." Dash said his name, knowing the familiarity would help. "I don't want to be another item on your list of worries; I don't want to add to your load, I want to help ease some of it off. I won't pick on you anymore, that much is a given, but I'll make sure no one else messes with you either. I have strings I can pull with the teachers, get you a few breaks in the school department, all kinds of stuff." He smiled softly. "I want to help you, as much as I can, but I can't do that if you don't accept my presence in your life, I play a part in this story now. I know your secret; nothing can change that, stop worrying over it and accept it for the blessing it is."

"You're such a fake." Danny said. "I know when you're putting on a fake show; I've only watched you do it to teachers a thousand times. I'm not falling for your sap." Dash's smile twitched and Danny burst out laughing. "'I play a part in this story' Oh yeah, you got that right. You sure played a part and you laid it on thick." Dash's smile cracked and soon he was laughing too. " Yeesh, stay away from those sappy romance movies for a while okay, they're messing up your brain." Danny practically doubled over; almost touching the cat on Dash's head who had his face buried in his knees to smother his laughs.

"Alright, alright so I went a little overboard," Dash said between giggles, "but in my defense you weren't taking me seriously. Honestly you wouldn't even look at me!"

Danny lifted his chin a bit. "Well if you weren't so hard to look at that wouldn't be a problem."

"Are you calling me ugly Fenton?" Dash tried to force a bit of anger into his voice, but his smile wouldn't fade.

"No, just an eyesore."

"I believe half the females at our school would disagree, and maybe even some of the boys."

"Yeah the half that need glasses, or serious psychological counseling."

"Alright now you're getting annoying, just who do you think you're talking to?"

"A very big, very dumb, very muscular football player who currently has a cat on his head and his head in my la—"

"Are we interrupting something?"

They both shot up, staring at the entrance to the kitchen where five very familiar people stood staring stupidly back at them.

"Twice in two days, wow you guys should get a bit more privacy." Tucker cracked but failed to alleviate the tension.

"Yo Baxter." Kwan stepped towards the two who had separated, Dash now standing off to the left of Danny, but still obviously within reach. "What are you doing here?'

"I uh…I was just here to…um, I was just taking …just… What are you doing here?" Danny flinched at that response, elbowing Dash in the side and mouthing the word "Moron." Dash kicked the chair.

"We stopped by your place but your parents said you spent the night at this loser's house." Paulina eyed said looser like he was some leper who would inflict Dash with his disease.

' Loser Disease, a highly contagious infection that contaminates many of the popular crowd, only treatment, quarantine, endless hours of partying, mandatory sports practice, and absolute cutoff from any and all geeks. Yep, that's me, and Dash just became polluted. Quick! Escape from the SIFI house of doom before you all catch it. Save yourselves, and take MR. "help me help you" with ya when you go!' Danny smirked at his own thoughts, completely indifferent to the glares of Paulina and the questioning looks his two best friends and sister were shooting at each other, but they knew enough about the situation to go into the other room and converse together alone. Danny was sure that with Jazz knowing part of one side and Sam and Tucker knowing parts of the other, they could piece together a third of the whole story by the time Dash got dragged off by his rescuers.

"Yeah, I spent the night, what of it?" Dash said, knocking Danny out of his thoughts. "And we had a cool time, didn't we Fenton?"

"What?" Danny looked up at Dash with a what-the-hell expression. "Like hell we di--"

"Look Dash," Danny shot the jock a freezing glare at being interrupted for the second time, "a couple of the guys explained what's going on and, I think it's cool but maybe you should think this through a bit more." Kwan stated.

"Explain?" Dash thought a moment. "Oh yeah, hey listen I was just --"

"Explained what Dash?" Danny crossed his arms over his chest, eyes gleaming an irritated green at being brushed out of the conversation so quickly.

"Uh…just about the ride home yesterday." Dash said, throwing Danny a stay-out-of-it glare to match the irritated emerald glow of Danny's eyes. "Personally I don't think I need to explain anything to you." Dash continued to Kwan and Paulina, ignoring Danny's heated glares. "If I want to hang with Fenton I'll hang with him, got it?"

"And why exactly would you want to hang with me, Dash?" Danny wasn't going to let the subject drop, not after everything Dash put him through over the past few years, seeing him in an uncomfortable situation always gave him a neat little thrill.

"How you were being beat to all hell and Dash wanted to butt heads with this new tormentor targeting his prey." Paulina stated. "Which I think is totally tacky and so teen comedy romance."

"Oh, is that how you're explaining our relationship now?" Danny's eyes twinkled with a sinister amusement and Dash felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

"Relationship?" Kwan and Paulina asked in unison.

"Okay!" Dash grabbed his friends and began pushing them towards the door, sure that a migraine was brewing at the base of his skull. "So glad you stopped by, thanks for the visit. Me and Fenton got things to discuss."

"What things?" Paulina asked, not liking at all that she was being shoved out of someone's house, even if it was Danny Fenton's.

"Yeah Dash, what things do we have to discuss?" Danny called, not getting up from his chair due to his newly injured leg.

"School stuff, homework, reading projects, math, that sort of stuff." Dash succeeds in shoving the two teens out onto the doorstep, much to the amusement of the three inhabitants of the living room. "It's all really boring and I don't want you to be punished for my low grades. Go on, have fun, go to a movie. I'll catch up with you guys later. Bye!" Dash closed the door on them with a big fake smile before storming back into the kitchen to confront the monstrosity that was an eighteen-year-old half ghost sitting in a chair at the kitchen table.

-

Paulina and Kwan stared at the closed door for a moment; unsure of exactly how they had managed to get on this side so quickly. Neither of them had ever actually been tossed out of a house, they were usually invited in with as much enthusiasm as a human could openly express without imploding.

"What do you think he meant by, 'relationship'?"

"I don't know, but I'm beginning to think that movie-comment you made might kind of be spot on."

-

"Bacon?" Danny asked Dash as he came storming back into the kitchen followed by Sam, Tucker, and Jazz. Danny held a plate with an omelet and pancakes out to Dash who stopped just short of reaching him and stared at it like it was some impenetrable force field. How could you threaten a guy offering you breakfast?

"I want some!" Tuck chimed from behind Dash, causing Sam to make gagging noises. "Got any other meat?" Tucker asked, surveying the pickings before deciding on a few pieces of sausage and an egg or two.

"Yeah, Dad's ham." Jazz said, opening the fridge.

"That's it?" Tucker complained.

"We haven't gone shopping yet this month." Danny explained. "All we had was blueberries, eggs, some cheese and veggies, and a bunch of Morningstar Farms stuff I got for that picnic thing two weeks ago.

"What were you thinking?" Dash yelled at Danny.

"Hello, Sam's a vegetarian, and Tucker didn't even know it was fake. A pretty ingenious plot if I do-"

"Not that you idiot!" Dash snarled. "Telling them that stuff!"

"What stuff?" Danny asked, pouring syrup over his pancakes.

"Telling them we're in a relationship!"

Tucker spilled the orange juice he had been pouring into a glass, effectively soaking his shirt with healthy tinted drinking fluid.

"Really? You are?" Jazz clasped her hands, a big fake mile of her face. "Aww how cute, my baby brothers got a boyfriend. I always wondered if there was something different about you. You know…other than the normal stuff. If you call ghost fighting normal." She hugged her brother, squeezing out a pained cry when she crushed his arm to his chest, both very sore and very sensitive areas.

"Wow, no wonder we didn't work out." Sam said as she crunched a strip of celery she'd dug out of the icebox into her mouth. "You know I always kind of guessed about Dash, but Danny just seemed so straight, so heterosexual, what with the ogling Paulina and Valerie, and the sneaking into the girls' locker room."

"You snuck into the girls' locker room?" Jazz pulled back to glare disapprovingly at Danny.

"Um…"

"What is with you people?" Dash cried, blushing furiously. "We are not in a romantic relationship, we're barely getting into a friendship, and" He spun on Sam. "How the hell do you think I'm gay? Did I act gay? Cause I don't get that."

"I've got gaydar," She replied proudly.

"Oh…what's that?" Dash asked, and everyone laughed.


	4. Boys and Boys

When they had finished breakfast, after a slew of arguments ranging everywhere between the paranormal, school, and who was cuter Adam Sessler or Morgan Webb (a topic Danny and Dash had clearly opposing sides on) and Dash announced he was going home Danny had assumed that meant goodbye until Monday. In truth Dash only wished to change, an understandable need since he had slept through the night in his soaked cloths, but Danny didn't understand why he had to tag along.

"You smell like sewer water, sweat, and blueberries." Danny stated with a curl of his lip, arm wrapped around Dash's shoulders as he was helped up the stairs to Dash's bedroom. "And don't ask what they all smell like together."

Dash couldn't suppress the laugh that filled his chest at the comment, "yeah, well you're pretty ripe too."

"I at least changed my clothes." Danny pointed out. "The least you could have done was take a shower while you were at my house."

"And put my filthy clothes back on? I'd still smell rank." They stopped at the head of the stairs to face each other. "And you didn't take a shower either."

" Hey, I had an excuse. I'm sure something of my dad's would have fit you."

"And what makes you think I'd wear anything of **your **fathers Fenton?" He glanced down at the scowling boy. "And you could too have taken a shower. You were up before me."

Danny was at a loss there. Actually, he had been planning to take a shower when Dash left. He voiced this.

Dash laughed, suddenly spinning around and walking back in the opposite direction of his room.

"Ack! What are you doing?!" Danny screamed when Dash picked him up all the way and carried him towards a door.

"Taking care of our problem." Dash laughed.

Dash's bathroom was frilly, like Danny's grandmothers, with all kinds of black and white pictures of people bathing in wooden washtubs. The shock of the bright peach coloring didn't compare to the one he got when Dash set a struggling him down in the shower and turned on the water.

Danny cried out again, backing away from the freezing liquid being shot out of the shower faucet like icy bullets. Didn't he get enough cold water last night?

His shoe caught on the drooping cuffs of his pant leg and he slipped back, latching onto Dash's neck to keep his balance. Caught off guard the blonde let out a yelp and fell into the shower with him, both landing in a tangle of limbs on the tiled floor being sprayed by the slowly heating water.

Dash let out another loud laugh when he saw how ridiculous Danny looked with wet hair, his too long, unevenly cut bangs drooping down in front of his face making him look like some emo shithead Sam hung out with, and the pouting "I hate the world" scowl he now sported completed the mask.

"I hate you." Danny mumbled, kicking Dash off him and reaching up to turn off the water. "I really hate you.

~*~*~

Danny sat on Dash's bed much like he had sat on his own bed the previous night, stiff and annoyed. Grimalkin, who had managed to get away with resting like a bearskin rug atop Dash's head for the duration of the morning, now purred lazily in Danny's lap.

Nothing was worse, in his book anyway, then being soaking wet, in Dash's spotless room, with an army of colorful teddy bears peeking out of the closet like curious toddlers. Their shiny black eyes like the lenses of dozens of tiny little cameras, all staring at him. Creepy.

Dash stripped a pair of jeans and a shirt from their hangers and closed the closet, shutting in every single one of the demonic stuffed toys. Danny breathed a sigh of relief then turned his cold glare to Dash, who deserved it the most for dragging him all this way with a newly injured shin, and then spraying him with a cold shower.

"I hate you." Danny said again in a clear, emotionless tone. It certainly was not laced with hate or malice, but held no trace of humor so couldn't be perceived as a joke. Just a simple statement, still when Dash turned to look at Danny the teen had already glanced away, looking with apparent boredom at the dozing black mass of fur in his lap.

"Yeah well, can't say the same. Not with you flying around saving people and whatnot. Makes it kinda difficult." Dash smirked, hoping to get a positive reaction from Danny at least once that day. Danny just scratched behind Grimalkin's ears, not interested in the least.

"I still don't understand why I had to come here with you; I should be at home with Sam, Jazz, and Tucker. If my parents come home and find out I left before they got back I'm in big trouble. Especially now that I'm beat up worse then I was before." Danny said neutrally as he rested his arm, bandaged and back in its navy blue sling slowly eroding the skin off the back of his neck, in his other hand, feeling the throbbing ache that continuously plagued him since he adamantly refused to take any medication that would slow his reflexes or blur his thoughts. Ghost fighting, it was a bitch.

"Well I can't just leave you alone now can I?" Dash asked, taking advantage of Danny's preoccupied state to change into clean dry cloths. "And what do you mean worse?"

"Sure you can, where would I be safer? It's my own house, filled with people who have knowledge and experience with ghosts and ghost fighting weapons, and it's protected by anti-ghost security equipment." Danny answered.

"Right, with parents who are out hunting ghosts more than at home, a sick older sister there only until tomorrow morning, and two best friends who have their own lives and worries to take care of. Not to mention half the gadgets there either don't work properly, or work too well and backfire on you, don't deny it I've seen it happen." Dash sat on the bed and began retying his shoes.

Dash had a point, though it never bothered him before, in fact he preferred it. He wasn't so selfish as to want Sam and Tucker to focus all their time on ghost hunting like he had to, and his parents spent enough embarrassingly loving time with him when they were home to make up for all the time they were gone. And Jazz? Well she was an adult; it wouldn't be any different if he was normal. As for the weapons, what did Dash expect, he was half ghost. Still…

"So what do you have in mind? Obviously we can't stick together every moment and if a ghost does attack, which usually happens during the most inconvenient times and it doesn't get more inconvenient then this," Danny indicated to his arm, "what do you plan to do about it?"

"First off, what did you mean by worse?" Dash picked up the previously discarded topic, avoiding the question.

"Nothing, just the new dent in my leg," Danny still didn't meet Dash's gaze, something he was making a habit out of these days.

"Fenton," Dash said in his well-accustomed warning tone. "Let me see."

"You already saw in the kitchen, I'm not letting you grope me again." Danny stated, trying to ruffle Dash's feathers and throw him off the subject.

"I wasn't groping you." Dash said sternly and for a moment Danny thought he'd drop it. "And I was referring to what's under your shirt."

"Oh you're are so lucky I'm a guy or I'd be offended, but then, you might not care. I wonder about Sam's sense of things, but her gaydar's never been wrong before." He didn't mention that it had also never been used, at least not to his knowledge.

"Fenton, take your shirt of now." Dash was losing his patience, not a good thing since he had so little of it to begin with, and Danny's constant attempts to throw him off weren't helping.

Glancing up from his cat for the first time since the closet door closed Danny threw a smile Dash's way. "Now you're really sounding pervy."

Dash smacked his forehead. "Fenton, take it off now!" he ground out beneath his hand.

Danny scrunched up his face for a second, but then finally shrugged and fazed out of his shirt, a handy technique he perfected after dropping his pants more times then he'd care to remember. At first Dash just stood there, staring as Danny leaned back on his one good elbow so he could get a better view of the dark blotches marring his pale flesh.

"Happy now?" Danny asked, even more annoyed then he was five minutes ago.

Dash just continued to stare. The dark splattering of purple and crimson bruises that had decorated his body the previous day had grown substantially, melding together like a colonization annexing every other splotch within the vicinity of it. Hints of green tinting showed within and around the edges of each stain. More so, the pools of dark coloring appeared to have traveled its way up Danny's shoulder towards his fractured arm and down towards his navel, nearly encompassing his entire midsection. He very much resembled a newly hatched bird having fallen and died on the sidewalk, it was quite disturbing.

"How…I don't…it's so…" Dash stuttered, left speechless by the horrific sight. "Fenton you…you need to see a doctor, that's…that's just bad. I don't think that's normal at all for bruising, it could be something really dangerous."

Danny furrowed his brow in thought. "I know, that's what I've been thinking, but look." Danny poked at his chest, Dash made a gagging sound, it looked soft, like rotten fruit in a zip lock baggie, but Danny's finger didn't sink into his chest like it appeared it would. "It doesn't hurt at all, not like you think it would."

"I don't-" Dash swallowed another gag at the sight. "I don't understand."

"So far it looks like plain old discoloration, see." He lifted his pant leg to show the developing bruise on his leg. "Look, this looks a lot different than the ones on my chest see?"

Dash nodded, sure now that the bruise on his leg, though still forming, looked much different from the strange formations. "So what does this mean?" He asked.

"I think it's something to do with me being ghost." Danny said, "I'll see if I can get out of dressing out in P.E. I don't know, claim that I feel uncomfortable showing my bruises. You think the nurse will back me? She seemed sweet." Sickly sweet but still, she might be helpful.

"I think that after what happened on Friday no teacher will say no to you." Dash ran a finger along one of Danny's marks causing him to shiver, he gave him a quizzical look, but Dash just shrugged, pulling his hand back. "They'll all be hating me though."

Danny sat up and attempted to get his shirt back on. "I tried to tell them you weren't responsible." He said defensively.

"I'm not blaming you Fenton, and I know you defended me." Dash stood, dug his wallet out of the back pocket of his discarded jeans then tossed his soiled cloths into the hamper. "I was just saying they'll be watching for me to do anything even remotely threatening, and our conversations tend to get a little heated."

Danny rose as well, wincing when he put pressure on his leg, and made his way to the door. "It's my Irish temper, it gets to me sometimes." Danny exited the room with Dash who stayed notably close incase his leg gave out on him. "I can get a little quarrelsome."

"Don't place all the blame on a specific bloodline, let's not forget you're also stubborn, prideful, illogical at the worst of times, and you hate accepting help even when you desperately need it." Dash poked Danny in his shoulder with every statement of his personality faults as they walked down the stairs. "Oh yeah, and your also clumsy."

"You know, you're a lot of those things too." Danny muttered.

"Yeah, but I accept them, I don't blame them on a watered down strand of DNA I got from my parents." Dash said, locking the door to his house, his parents had headed to work, since it was nearly twelve.

"Alright, okay so I'm all that and more and it's entirely my fault, but you try catching ghosts while dodging my parents, Valerie, my many enemies, yourself included, and still get fair enough grades." Danny felt a foot catch on the other in the final porch step, the world around him shifted and his body moved forward. Instinctively he angled to land on his shoulder in a roll before realizing it was still injured and he didn't have time to reverse. This was going to hurt.

"Hey!" Dash cried when Danny tripped, and with reflexes honed by years of sports he reached out, grabbed Danny by the shoulders and pulled him back against his chest.

Danny's knees were buckled beneath him and his ankles were still crossed, the only thing keeping him upright was Dash's firm hold on his upper arms, which despite the stitches in the long gash and the deep blue sling reminding him of his vulnerability, Dash's tight grip didn't hurt.

"You okay?" Dash asked feeling the dampness of the cloth beneath his hands. Danny snorted.

"Yeah, just trying to remember what celestial deity I pissed off to give me all this crap in under two days." Danny got his feet back under him and stood to his full height, still a good three inches below Dash but enough to glance over his shoulder at him and smirk. "I think you're a jinx."

"Woohoo! Yo Baxter, I didn't know you were into that stuff!" A voice sounded across the street and both turned their heads to watch as a group of sophomores on skateboards rolled down the sidewalk whistling.

"Send me some pictures will ya!" A girl called. "My mom found my porn!"

They rolled away laughing their asses off and Danny glared, wishing he could knock them off their skateboards with his powers, but he was too embarrassed to try.

"Jerks." Dash muttered and let go of Danny's shoulders who quickly stepped away.

"Yeah, well you were no different." Danny muttered, turning to walk in the direction of his house with as little limping as possible. As a teenager dignity was something often denied to him, but this time he wanted to escape with it intact. "Funny how pissy you are when you're the receiver.

"What? Hey, I thought we already went over this. I'm sorry okay? What more do you want?" Dash said angrily as he followed closely behind Danny.

"Four years Dash."

"What?" Dash grabbed Danny's forearm to stop him but Danny shook it off.

"Four years. Four. You can't make it up all that quickly, certainly not with a _sorry_." He sneered the word "The pain, the humiliation, the countless days when I woke up still sore and beaten from a fight and dreaded going to school because I knew you'd be there." Danny stopped and turned to face him, his eyes a mix between green and blue, emotions swirling the colors around like clouds in the center of a hurricane. "You know what the worst part is? From the very beginning, when I first got these powers, I could beat you. Humiliate you in every way possible, trip you in the halls, make you spill things on people, force you to say things you wouldn't, mess you up in games, ruin you socially."

Danny turned his head away as though ashamed, "I could hurt you physically, too. I could have killed you, from the very beginning, even while I was just learning I could have blasted you, completely destroyed you." He sighed. "And I was tempted, oh was I tempted. But I couldn't, and not because I felt anything, any compassion or remorse, but because I was supposed to be the good guy. I was the hero, and heroes don't hurt people."

Dash stood on the sidewalk completely dumbfounded as the teen continued walking in his long, careful strides.

Danny had thought about hurting him?

Sure, after everything he put him through it wasn't that big of a surprise, but Danny just didn't seem the aggressive type. He could be a bit ill tempered and argumentative, but violent?

"Yo! Fenton wait!" Dash ran after Danny, who walked damn fast with a hurt shin, but as he got closer the brunette just disappeared.

Dash was starting to get irritated now. People didn't just pop like a soap bubble in the blink of an eye. Danny used his ghost powers to get away, and now Dash had to walk back to Fenton Works by himself while the little ghost boy went off and pouted.

He fisted his hands on his hips, glaring at the sidewalk that Danny had been standing on, as though expecting little bits of splattered Danny Fenton to me smiling up at him, mocking him. Damn cartoon brain of his, damn stupid metaphor, damn everything.

He turned on his heal and walked briskly back into his house. If Danny was going to pout like a little kid, fine. Dash would just catch up with him back at his house. First though, he needed to pack.

~*~*~

Danny lay back against the thick branches cradling him, stretching his arm out, inspecting the limb for any abnormality. He moved his arm with a slow caution, there was a stiff ache from having it confined in the sling that lay abandoned on the ground at the base of the tree several yards below him, but no real pain. Even the throbbing had receded, though not entirely.

Letting the sore appendage fall he leaned back again, dangling his arms and legs over the large branch he rested on. This was his tree, his special place where he went to think. It was a big tree with thick branches reaching towards the heavens like the hands of the dead striking up through the grave. Leaves covered every inch of the space around him, bumping into each other, wrestling, overlapping, fighting for every ray of sunshine. But in the center, where every branch drove up and out, there was nothing, and he made himself a nest there.

It wasn't the exact center of the tree, just a few large main branches crossing over each other, but the smaller branches were easy to cut off and it provided the perfect shelter from the outside world. And with no way up into the sanctuary, the many other tightly entangled branches blocking all entrance, he was safe from all who couldn't fly and turn intangible.

Brushing a hand over his stomach he worried over the strange markings. He knew that something was wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn't think of what to do. Obviously these…injuries had something to do with his ghost powers, what would happen if a Doctor, or worse his parents, inspected them and found something odd.

With a sigh he adjusted himself against the tree. Things were getting freaky, and he knew from experience when freaky things started happening, bad things tended to follow.

With a wide yawn he closed his eyes. It was a nice warm day, much different from last night. Maybe he could take a nap.

Just a short nap.

~*~*~

"So, why are you cleaning up around here?" Sam asked, leaning against the bathroom door.

"Because this place is a mess and I figure I'll be spending a bit of time around here waiting for Danny to quit being emo, so why not help out?" Dash answered as he straightened the cat litter box until it was perfectly parallel to the back of the toilet.

"Are you OC or something?" Sam pushed away from the doorframe to glance around at all the straightened things, pictures, rugs, he even arranged Jazz's and Danny's medicine cabinet according to size and color. "Because if not I must say you're getting creepy."

Dash shrugged, reached out to straighten a toothbrush, and left the bathroom, Sam at his heals. "I don't know, never bothered to check. My parents like a clean house and I picked up the habit. Though I do eat my fruit loops and M&M's in an order according to color and amount." Dash glanced over his shoulder and grinned.

Sam wasn't amused. "So what, you think straightening up and doing some chores will get Danny to forgive what you've done to him these past four years?" Sam bit her words off like a protective dog snapping at the air. "And all because you figured out he's your big hero. He hasn't changed since yesterday you know, he's still the same dorky, thickheaded looser you harass on a daily basis."

Dash stopped at the top of the stairs, Grimalkin, who had been sitting on Dash's bed playing with his favorite teddy bear when he had reentered the house, walked over and sat on his foot, as though restraining him from continuing.

"You're wrong Manson." Dash said, picking up the cat and sitting on the top stair. "Fenton has changed since yesterday." Sam just glared at him, leaning against the railing, drumming her black-nail-polished fingertips on the wood.

"How so, because he's a hero now? He's always been a hero Dash, you just never noticed."

"No," Dash replied, "because he's hurt."

Sam blinked, "What?"

"You know Thursday, when he fell from…wherever he was." Dash smiled for a moment, but it melted away. "He, he got hurt."

"Yeah, a fracture, a cut along his right arm that took about five stitches, I don't know the details, and those bruises—"

"That's what I'm talking about!" Dash said loudly. "They aren't real bruises."

"What?" Sam slumped down next to the quarterback, forgetting her dislike of him for the moment. "What do you mean, of course their bruises."

"No, I mean, sure the look like bruises, until you compare then to real bruises. A side by side comparison." Dash was talking quickly, the cat in his lap jumping from one knee to the other, in reaction to his mood. "And they're huge, this big dark splash of color across his stomach and chest, like something out of a horror movie, like something's inside him and taking over. You know that scene in the matrix when Neo touches the silver liquid in the mirror and it starts to crawl all over him. It's like that, only it's a purple and red paintball that hit him right in the chest and it's just inching along, but its moving." Dash stopped, took a few deep breaths, and watched Sam's reaction.

"Dash," she said slowly, and Dash straightened, ready for her to call him crazy or something. "I've been working with Danny for years now, me and Tucker both. Tucker's been his friend since infancy and we're both a little edgy about you knowing Danny's secret." Dash was about to protest, to once again claim he would never throw his hero under the bus, but Sam stopped him. "Dash, we know you wouldn't betray Danny, you idolize him too much, but we need to know some things."

Dash waited.

"Dash, the things that happened yesterday, the gym, the nurses office, and after school, they're way too out of character for you. I understand Danny was injured, but you're hardly a merciful and caring person. We need to know the story behind this, the whole story. So if you could please, just tell us everything that happened." Sam stood up to walk down to the kitchen. "Jazz and Tucker are waiting, so far we've gone over what we know, but you play a part in this too Dash, and right now it looks like you know more about this than any of us."

Dash nodded, unsure of how he could explain the principal and Lancer's punishment of having to take care of Fenton, but he would try. "Alright."

~*~*~

When Danny finally returned to his house it was dark outside and his parents were in the kitchen laughing at the cat batting at the mouse hole in his kitchen wall.

"Danny, you're home. Good, we were getting a bit worried." Maddie said, setting a small food bowl with the word "Grim" and a ghostly apparition on the side. Danny wished he had named the cat something that couldn't be abbreviated into the name for the angel of death, because the pint sized black cat skittering across the tile hardly looked "grim".

"Yeah, I uh, I just needed a little alone time." Danny said, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, Sam and Tucker went home about an hour ago but that one boy is still here." Jack said and Danny stopped halfway out of the kitchen. "What's his name, Dan, Don, Dabi, Dabir, Dace…"

"Dash Dad." Danny said, taking a deep breath. "His name is Dash."

"Oh yes, that was it." Jack said and Danny rolled his eyes, continuing into the living room.

Dash was sitting on the couch watching Ghostbusters bring the Statue of Liberty to life. He glanced up at Danny, smiled, then when back to watching. Danny dropped down on the couch beside him, despite having slept the entire day away he felt exhausted.

"You know, you could have gotten attacked by ghosts any time today and none of us could have helped you." Dash said, not glancing away from the TV.

"Yeah, but I didn't really care at the time. I just needed my space." He curled up against the armrest and watched the people of New York rally behind the enormous green symbol of freedom.

They watched in silence as the movie played out. When the credits started rolling Dash peeked over at Danny. "I, I have something I need to explain to you."

"I already figured you'd stay the night again, Dash, when my parents said you were over. Oh, and thanks for bringing Grimalkin back."

"You're welcome, but that's not what I need to say." Danny sat up, watching Dash through drooping eyelids. "I…I'm going to be stuck around you for a while, I explained a bit of it to you this morning but you need to know all of it." He didn't feel any better now than he did when he explained everything to Danny's sister and friends, it wasn't any easier like he thought it would be, but he had to do it.

"Principal Ishiyama really believes that I'm the one that hurt you, and I don't think anything either of us says will change her mind. Mr. Lancer has no choice but to go along with what she's planned out, but it's not only the two of them. Every member of the faculty and staff, and probably a few students, who are in the loop, will be watching us. To make sure I don't hurt you and…and to make sure… you don't…"

Danny sat up. "What? They think I'm like suicidal or something?"

"I don't think it's that Fenton." Dash said, there was something bugging him about how stern, how serious the normally peppy principal had been. "I think their more concerned about…well..."

"They think I'll snap and blow up something." Danny finished. He moaned miserably, falling back against the couch and smothering his face with a pillow. "Great. Just great. As if I'm not the freakiest kid in school already, now I'm a homicidal maniac."

"Well, it's not that hard to picture." Dash said, and Danny glared at him from beneath his cushioned barrier. "I…It's just that you're quiet, you skip school all the time, you're bullied constantly, and you have access to the most advanced weapons in the world." Danny groaned again, putting the throw pillow back against the couch and slumped against it, turning away from Dash, the effect was ruined however, when he yawned.

The clock above the TV read eight and he wondered why he was so tired, he had been sleeping most of the day, if anyone should be tired it was Dash.

Glancing over his shoulder he watched the jock turn the TV off. Dash had been up almost all night watching over him… he felt a little guilty. He had acted a bit like an ass earlier.

"Wanna camp out here tonight?" Danny asked, startling Dash who had been staring blankly into the empty TV screen.

"Wha?"

"Sleep. Out here." Danny answered with a smile. "The couch pulls out."

"Thanks for the suggestion, but I came over to watch out for you, and I can't do that from down here." Dash said.

Danny rolled his eyes. "And if I'm down here too?" he asked.

"What?" Was Danny suggesting….

Dash blushed the instant the thought crossed his mind, his previous night's dream coming back to haunt him. Danny didn't see this however, as he was busy pulling the couch cushions off to unroll the bed hidden beneath them.

"Uh…sure I guess." Dash said. There was absolutely nothing wrong with sharing the hideabed. Nothing. Teenagers shared beds all the time when they slept over, he had done it with several of his friends when they had to stay in hotels after out of town games. Nothing wrong…

"Good, go get changed, it'll be done when you are." Danny said with a tired smile, glad he didn't have to argue with Dash about him sleeping on his bedroom floor again.

~*~*~

Maddie sat on the edge of the hide-a-bed and brushed a lock of dark hair away from her son's face. She bit the corner of her lip in worry; he looked so tired, so worn. Right now was a very stressful time in his young life and she worried for him often, about his moving away, going to college, growing up, leaving her. He was her baby boy and as much as she wanted him to succeed in life, she didn't want to let him go just yet.

Danny stirred, unconsciously shifting closer to the other body on the bed, to companionship and warmth. This time when his mother bit her lip, it was to stifle a laugh. It was hard not to think of her son as a baby boy when he was wearing starship pajamas and snuggling with his friend, two teddy bears between them. Really, what mother wouldn't find it adorable?

The fact that they were both almost grown men never took place in her mind.

Brushing a soft kiss to Danny's forehead she took her husband by the hand and led him up the stairs to their own bed, wishing the fondest dreams to her son.

How she loved him.

~*~*~

Dash woke to the feeling that something was wrong, very wrong.

Danny wasn't in bed, he knew that already, and the space he had once occupied was cold. No, he hadn't gone to use the restroom or get a snack. He had been gone some time, and Grimalkin was nowhere to be seen as well. Were they together?

He hoped so.

Shoving the covers off him he stumbled out of bed, worried and frightened, bumping into furniture in the dark, unfamiliar room. The first place he checked was the kitchen, simply because it was where he staggered into first. The linoleum was hard and cold against his knees when he tripped and fell, the room just as dark as everything else.

Clenching his jaw Dash glared at the hard tile, feeling angry and scared and not knowing why. He just felt like something bad was going to happen, and he needed to find Danny.

Needed to find him now.

Harsh, vengeful laughter trickled into his ears and he found himself brushing it away, but it was not a tangible thing, sound could not be brushed away or blocked by mere fingers.

A green glow, light neon green, deep forest green, swirling sea foam green, various different hues of green swirled around in the doorway straight ahead of him. The stairwell to the basement…

Punching the floor in anger he pushed himself up, feeling a strange foreboding aura circling around him, slowing him down, forcing him back to the ground with a dreadful weight. Not a real, touchable weight; more a depressing self-restraint.

He clenched his fists at his sides in anger, stupid Danny Fenton. Didn't take him seriously, didn't think he needed his help, just because he had ghost superpowers and saved people, because he was the hero. Dash could be a hero if he tried. He was strong, and he cared. He just wasn't a nice person, nice didn't fit with him. Nice didn't get him the respect he needed, that he deserved.

But Fenton, Fenton got everything when he was the hero, when he was nice, maybe not as Fenton, but as Danny Phantom. He wished he could still hurt Danny. That he could still pound him without this disarming fear wrenching his gut. He wanted to hurt Danny badly, like he used to in Freshman year.

The doorway seemed too far, the stairs too long, time too short. If only he had woken up earlier. What was his hurry, why did he care about the time? Was something going to happen? Why didn't he wake up when Danny got up, why hadn't he felt Danny move?

He hated it, hated that Danny hadn't woke him up. He hated Danny Fenton. Hated him so much. He wished he weren't ever around, wished that Danny never existed. He wished he could kill him.

The basement was alive with color, but not blindingly so. Soft lights, like it was illuminated by candles, hundreds of tiny candles. Or perhaps a glowing mist.

A glittering fog.

So many different shades of green, blotches in a pattern, no two looking the same yet none of them seamed separate. They blended together and Dash's eyes burned from trying to separate them. The weight still held him down, clutching at his chest along with the horrible feeling that something really bad was about to happen.

A nauseating stench filled the room. A horrible rotting smell, like bad fruit. The smell of decomposing flesh. The ghosts from before, they were back.

Where was Danny?

"Fenton," Dash whispered, and spotted him the instant he did as though the name were a link, a focus to draw his concentration to the person.

Danny was pressed up against the wall, looking as misty and translucent as the spectral entities surrounding them. He didn't look scared, not like before. He looked determined, cool and calm. Dangerous. He looked like the superhero, though he remained the human boy.

Dash didn't even think, he rushed into the basement, straight towards Danny in his heavy, haggard tread. He hated this boy. Hated him so much.

Danny didn't look at him when he arrived, just grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the wall. A brush of skin, flesh against flesh. He hated this boy. Hated him so much. He wished he were dead. Wished he could kill him.

Laughter sounded in his ear again. So close, so very close, and cold too. He glared at Danny, but it didn't look like the boy had heard. Maybe he was ignoring it. This laughter. It was annoying, and Danny was just tuning it out instead of kicking ghost butt so they could go back to bed.

He hated him. Wished he were dead…

Dash trembled. He hated Danny so much, always had. Hated him. So. Very. Much.

Danny's jaw tightened and he stared at the shifting glow, because it couldn't even be called a light. So strange, so different, he didn't even know the proper way to describe it. It was like someone had sprayed glow in the dark glitter in the air and it never settled.

"Mist…why mist?" Dash whispered the question to himself, concentrating. He glanced around the room. The laughter, it wouldn't go away. It wouldn't leave.

"They can't take form. If they do, the security system will go off. Every ghost that passes through my house has to be intangible, there's no going around it." Danny explained in a hushed voice.

"That smell."

"Yeah. It's them, but they can't do anything. Nothing at all."

"Then why…why are they here?" Dash whispered back.

The mist reacted to every word they said, knowing full well it couldn't do a thing. It shifted and swirled, dancing around itself, the many different colors, shades, and hues.

"Influence." Danny said, feeling the fire burning up his arm where he still held Dash's wrist. All the ghosts' fault. "They're here through influence." If he had stayed in bed, if he had hesitated rather than following his instincts, if he hadn't checked the security…if…

Dash felt the depressing weight against his chest again, his shoulders ached and his eyes were itchy. He remembered the anger he felt towards Danny for getting up, for leaving and not telling him. Horrible irrational hatred, blinding homicidal rage. He shifted his arm, taking Danny's hand in his. The world grew a little more solid at the touch, a haze he hadn't noticed left the corners of his eyes.

He hated him. Hated him so much, but he didn't really.

He didn't hate him. He couldn't…

Danny glanced away from the swirling mist for the first time since it appeared almost an hour ago. Dash stared at their joined hands as a more passionate anger tugged at his chest. The ghosts, the ghosts were doing this. Playing with his emotions, with his body's reactions, with his feelings.

His heart was something he considered sacred, his feeling and emotions, his body, was something he valued. To have something influence it, to have someone use him against his own wishes. It was something he could not tolerate.

His hand tightened again. Danny overshadowed him. Did it often. Used him to make a fool of himself.

He shook his head. Those voices, that laughter. No. It was the ghosts and they were trying to use him.

Use him like Danny did.

Danny didn't use him. He got revenge, he humiliated him, took over his body, but his mind and heart were his own, it was all pranks. Fun and games. Danny was a hero. He could have, he could have hurt him all those times, but he held back…he said so himself. He was the hero.

"They're speaking to you, aren't they?" Danny whispered.

He knew. He knew so much.

"They're…they're…"

"They're using you against me." Danny said, knowing full well what they were doing. Ghosts always used his friends, his family, against him. It was what he got for being the hero. "It isn't the first time, ghosts seem to like having you beat me up."

"It's not that…" Dash whispered, his grip on Danny' hand near bone crushing. "Its…Its…my god Fenton they want…they want me to…" Danny saw tears glittering at the edge of Dash's eyes. "I don't want to. I can't, but I can't move away either."

"Neither can I," Danny said, sliding down to sit on the floor, bringing Dash with him. "I've been here for almost two hours. They won't let me leave."

"Paralyzed." Dash whispered, hypnotized by the swirling colors. They had both of them trapped. Dash didn't trust himself, not down here with these…things. He tried to move, and not to move. He didn't want to do it, not what they wanted. Not now, not ever.

He didn't want that.

"Just stay here. Relax." Danny said in the same hushed tone they had been using throughout the entire conversation.

"Right…relax," Dash didn't think he could, not with this ghost dust whispering naughty things in his ear. "This is all kinds of messed up."

"I expected you'd react a bit, differently" Danny said, trying to distract him, knowing Dash was scared out of his wits right now.

"I…l-like what?"

"Oh, like screaming and running. What everyone always does."

"I…I um," Dash thought a moment. He should be hysterical, and inside he was losing his mind wanting to run upstairs and hide beneath the blankets. He felt like crying, he was so scared. So very scared. But Danny…did he really need to know that? "I guess this is something you get used to, right?"

Danny smiled at that. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Dash breathed out a big sigh, leaning back against the wall, feeling the big, depressing weight crush him down. He brought his knees up to his chest like Danny did, feeling tired and angry and scared. He stared at their joined hands, at the link to sanity, and contemplated letting go.

Would he still be safe without Danny holding him?

Holding him….

Danny was watching him, watching the terrified look on his face. Dash wanted to run, and if given the chance Dash would run. He knew it. Knew that unless he was absolutely forced to Dash would never fight anything he couldn't obviously win against. He wasn't Sam or Tucker, who would risk their lives for him on a daily basis, and he wasn't like Valerie who hunted ghosts for all the same reasons he did. Dash was…Dash. The same Dash he always was, since freshmen year. Scared, brave, strong, weak. He was the normal person.

Without thinking Danny shifted, releasing his hold on Dash's hand and pulling him down. Dash let out a startled squeak, blushing madly as Danny pulled him closer.

He was taller than Danny, bigger too, the embrace was awkward, but the half ghost held him close in a way Dash had never been held. It was protective, comforting. The kind of embrace he should have given Danny the previous night…

He could hear Danny's heartbeat, slow and steady and loud in his ear. Danny brushed his disheveled hair back away from his face in a calming motion. He felt tears prick at the back of his eyes again; this was the boy he had tormented up until two days ago.

His hero, his victim.

He had no right to be comforted, but he wanted to.

He let his legs slide back to the floor as he wrapped his arms around Danny's thin waist. The sound, Danny's heartbeat, so warm and steady and loud, it drowned out the voices, the laughter. He felt his eyes drooping closed as the sound filled his ears, chasing away all else.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

~*~*~

Dash didn't really know when he left the dream world for reality, even in the darkness of his mind he could hear the steady thrum of a heartbeat, and when he opened his eyes to the soft dim blue light of early morning; perhaps an hour before the sun would rise. The blankets were in tangles around him in a cocoon and he knew he had been sweating in the night, he could smell it, and felt the griminess all over his body. He raised his head slightly from Danny's chest, the sound fading the further his ear got from the pulsating organ.

He hadn't bolted awake in a cold sweat, hadn't sat in his bed shivering over the outlandish nightmare. He just opened his eyes, opened them and stared. Danny stirred beside him and he realized how close he was, how close "they" were to each other. His pulse would not go down, the dream having scared him more than he cared to admit.

Danny's arms were wrapped limply around him, Dash lifted himself further away and felt bare skin brush against his own and the receding gooseflesh rose up again. Fire spread across his shoulder, his arms, his breath hitched and a rush of sweet adrenaline poured into his bloodstream. With wide eyes he shifted away, all too aware of the body close to him. Arms fell back to the cushions, one lying where he used to be, the other crossing over Danny's torso.

He looked so innocent, so weak and vulnerable. Dash wanted to protect him, but he knew Danny was the strong one, and he Dash Baxter was the vulnerable human. The scared, weak, oh so ordinary human.

The clock on the VCR read 5:30 and Dash contemplated going back to sleep, but decided against it. Danny got up early yesterday morning to make him breakfast, maybe he should do something for him. Pulling back the covers he left the bed, his knees week, almost buckling under his weight when he stood. Quickly steadying himself on the arm of the couch.

For his hero.

Dash smiled at the thought as he walked into the kitchen. Such a strange dream. One would think Danny Phantom would come to his rescue, but no. No this time the hero was Fenton. Danny Fenton.

Fenton was a hero too.

Because they were one in the same.

~*~*~

Breathe, he couldn't breathe. Water surrounded him, dark, cold water. He struggled to swim up but his arms where tied behind his back, and hands….hands where holding him down, strong, rough hands and more than one pair. He resisted, kicked, fought, but they still held him. Held him beneath the water.

Then there was light. Blinding light.

And air.

Oh precious air!

He took greedy gasps of it, filling his lunges to bursting before breathing out and starting again. His knees shifted under him, supporting his body as his head hung heavily, forehead resting against the rim of the wooden trough. He coughed, he cried, he shook, but the hands that held him down had no more room for pity, his hot tears flowed with the icy water draining from his shaggy hair, the biting cold of the air stinging his skin beneath his soaked blouse.

One of the hands fisted in his hair, yanking his head upward to stare into the face of his assailant. The blinding light of the sun pierced his eyes, reflecting off every shiny white patch of ice and frost covering the run down houses surrounding them. The searing light darkened all else, silhouetting the looming figure he was supposed to be looking at.

His dazed, blinded expression, his failure to answer a question that he had not heard, the constant ringing in his ears downing out all else, earned him a sharp blow to the side of his head and once again, without warning, without time for one last breath, he was plunged into the cold, icy water.

He struggled, fought for air though he knew it was useless. The hand remained in his hair, pressing his head down until he felt the graze of the bottom. He couldn't help it, couldn't resist his body's natural reaction. His will to live, to fight.

Once again he was dragged up to the surface, this time he closed his eyes against the light as he gasped, and concentrated on the voices around him. His face wasn't allowed to rest against the wood this time, his hair pulled back, straining his neck to look straight up the moment he was pulled free.

"Where are they boy?" The man asked.

He shook, harsh tremors rolling under his skin, a shuddering earthquake that seemed to stem from his very bones.

It was cold outside. So cold. If he told them, would they let him back inside? A fire? Blanket?

No.

A knife to the throat would be his only reward.

He would never tell.

"Tell me boy! WHERE?!" The man was shouting now, his gruff, weathered voice almost as loud as the high pitched church bells chiming in his ears. Another blow across his face, this time with a hard, heavy stick. A cane perhaps? Yes, the man's wooden walking cane.

He wouldn't tell, never, and he was dunked back beneath the water once more.

"You can't take much more of this boy; you'll die soon, if not from drowning then from the cold." The man said when he resurfaced. His voice visible in the frosty breath escaping his mouth. He continued to tremble, to shake and shiver, it was so cold, and his head hurt badly, but he would not tell. He wanted to, oh how he wanted to tell, but he would not. He bit his tongue, fearful of its treachery, and a flood of coppery warmth filled his mouth.

He would never tell.

His battered, bloody face hardened in hatred and determination and he spat a stream of blood and saliva straight at the evil man looming over him. It splattered across his thick warm winter coat with a satisfyingly disgusting sound.

The man, the evil murderous man stared down at him with a curling lip and a vengeful, burning gaze.

Then he was struck again.

And again…

And again

Over and over until the icy ground beneath him was splattered with drops of his blood. He knew he would die. He knew it, but he would not talk. He would never talk. Even in death.

Never.

With a final blow, darkness came, but not in a slow creeping motion, or even a fast swarm. It just suddenly became dark.

Like the extinguishing of a guiding lantern.

The end of hope.

~*~*~

Grasping, clutching, falling, floating, pain, fire, sizzling flesh against flesh, teeth tearing, cold metal, hot blood, the smoky tendrils of a dream fading back into the darkness, shying away from the sun. Who was it that said to beware those who dream during the day? Another nightmare, or was it? Danny's eyes fluttered open

Even as he lay there, eyes bleary, small details of the dream slipped away from him. The man's features, the surrounding landscape, the strange engravings on the cane that had struck him. He remembered so much, yet when he tried to recall something, to reflect, he found it slipping away from him, back into his mind, away from his memory's probing tendrils. His heart was beating fast, as if he woke up with a start, but he didn't remember why.

He tried to sit up but found his body wouldn't respond, why was everything so heavy? It was like some vacuum was there beneath him, sucking him in, holding him down. Straps restraining every limb, it even hurt to breath, but then, it had been difficult to breath for a few days now.

He blamed it on Dash's constant smothering, anxiety suffocating him, why couldn't the jock understand that he needed a little space? Why didn't anybody understand his need to be alone for a while? Nobody knew what he was going through every day, the constant battles, school, bullying, teachers, parents, and the ever looming future, ominous and uncertain.

Laughter?!

A strong bout of laughter jolted through his ears, from the kitchen, and startled him back awake and out of the void he'd been drifting into.

Dash was no doubt flirting with his sister. Joy, just what he needed.

Actually it was. If Dash got hung up, at least for an hour, with his sister it would give him plenty of time to go out and…well, breath freely for a while. Like yesterday…

A crash, a curse and Jazz laughing at Dash who sounded angry and flustered, what was going on in there? He should get up and go play referee, or at least see what broke. Yeah, just get up, kick off the covers and whatever shackles of sleep still tied him to the bed, and walk into the kitchen. Then he could leave.

Get up…

All he had to do was get up…

..Just get up and he could leave.

"Hey Danny!" Jazz walked out of the kitchen and over to the folded out couch. "What do you think about donuts at that cool little place down by the bus station?" She still had some laughter in her voice and a little water in her eyes when she leaned over his sprawled form. "hmm?"

"Don't wake him up." Dash said quietly from the doorway.

"Why not?"

"Because…well," he cast a nervous glance towards the stairs, "you know."

"Dash." Jazz said with a sigh. "Didn't I just get finished saying this? Stop obsessing over him, okay? We've all tried it already, it doesn't work. Believe me, I know better than anyone else." She put her hands on her hips and Danny tried to move his head to see them. Didn't they know he was awake? "If the thought of him as a human is so discomforting to you, get a new fixation and stop acting like such a drooling fanboy."

Dash choked on his own air, getting out a few gasped objections, but ended up storming away, back into the kitchen to clean up whatever mess he had made.

"Danny!" Jazz turned to him. "Danny wake up, I'm leaving soon and I want to spend the morning with you!" Jazz grabbed his arm and yanked him off the bed. "Get up!"

Magic words, or maybe it was the hitting the floor with his head, either way whatever little spell he was having passed quickly and he groaned, yanking his arm back from his peppy sister and trying to get up from his current upside down position on the floor.

"Now see? Isn't that better?" She asked a little two sweetly, why the hell did smart people use sarcasm?

"Yeah Jazz, my cozy position on the bed was such a hardship; I'm so very grateful you came along to liberate me from my bedtime oppressors."

"Your very welcome little brother, now go upstairs, I'll distract your stalker long enough for you to get dressed in privacy."

"Where are you dragging me off to?" Danny stood, swatting imaginary dust off his pajamas and acting as though he hadn't already been awake.

"The donut shop," she replied in a cheery 'I'm a morning person' voice.

"Is there a choice involved in this somewhere?" Jazz was moving towards the doorway to the kitchen so Danny decided now was a good time to head towards the stairs.

"No." She replied curtly.

"Great." Should have escaped when he had the chance, stupid teen laziness.

~*~*~

"So where were we before you broke breakfast?" Jazz asked when she reentered the kitchen to see Dash washing out the porcelain bowl he had been beating eggs in; amazingly, it only had a small chip in it.

"We were talking about my totally unimportant nightmare and how you think it's some sub…subconsi— whatever that word was."

Jazz gave him an exasperated look. "You've said big words before; don't try that 'I'm too stupid for audio' act on me."

Dash actually managed to look embarrassed.

With a stern look Jazz sat back in a kitchen chair. "Now that we're sure Danny won't be listening in, I'll ask you the question again. Are you crushing on my brother?"

Dash expected she'd return to that, but his hand still slipped and he almost dropped the bowl in the sink. "No." He said firmly, or at least steadier than his flustered denials and furtive glances towards the kitchen door he had managed not two minutes ago.

"Really, because it's totally fine with me, I mean to each his own, genetics and all, but I'm just letting you know Danny's about as straight as they come."

"Yeah I know so—"

"I mean, ramrod straight, like the kind of straight that when the universe curves he'll just keep going. "

"Listen I—"

"And what with your obsession with Danny Phantom, your hero and idol for the past few years, and finding out that said previously untouchable hero is now before you in a tangible, accessible, slightly more acceptable form it's no real surprise, for me at least, that you would have these urges and—"

"Okay, can you stop now please, before my gag reflex kicks in?" Danny interrupted from the doorway. Jazz's blush almost matched Dash's as they stared at him.

"Why didn't you tell me he'd come back downstairs?!" She hissed.

"I tried, you kept interrupting me." Dash said with a scowl.

Danny cocked a hip as he glared ice at the people in the room. "Mind telling me why you two are sitting around discussing my sexual preference?"

Dash looked at Jazz a moment before coughing nervously. "You know, I think I'll go get dressed so we can get donuts before your bus runs." Dash said as he inched his way around the short, very dangerous, dark-haired teen blocking the door.

"Coward!" Jazz yelled after him as he ran up the stairs.

"You know, I think I'd rather not know." Danny said uncertainly after glaring at Jazz a few more seconds. "I'll be waiting in the car."

Jazz let her head fall to the table with a thud.

~*~*~

The donut shop, really a café that happened to make the best doughnuts in town, was never that crowded in the early morning, mainly because two of the three owners of the place were most definitely not morning people and the remaining one, a cute slim blonde who was pretty friendly, tended to scare people away with her eccentricities.

This particular morning she looked fairly normal, though she was reading a lesbian porno rather obviously at the counter. Only those used to her, like Jazz was, would know that it was not a porno at all, but rather a comic book cleverly disguised in an attempt to scare off anyone who would disturb her morning. She usually used this time to relax from her long night in the back where the more gothic hung out.

"Hey, can we get a few of your famous donuts and three cups of hot chocolate?" Jazz asked loudly as she sat at a tablecloth covered table near the large, multi paneled window.

"Coffee" Dash interrupted.

"You're drinking chocolate."

"Hey sexy, sure thing." The blonde said, swiveling around in her stool to begin to actually work.

"I'll have some coffee too, almond please." Danny didn't really, but felt like bugging his sister.

"You'll drink what I ordered or you'll wear it." The red-head snarled

"So does that mean I get to pour it on them?" the girl called from behind the granite slab.

"Sure, that's fine by me!" not knowing if the girl would actually do it the two teens agreed on the cocoa. "So, what do you boys want to talk about?"

"Oh man, we aren't gonna continue from where we left off in the kitchen are we?" Dash groaned, having enjoyed the quiet drive over.

"Jazz, you were the one who brought us here, what do you want to talk about." Danny plopped down in his seat with a little more of a huff than really necessary.

"I'm just here to flirt with the cutie behind the counter." She teased loud enough for her friend to hear.

"Sorry, as of last night I'm officially taken."

"What?" Jazz almost stood up when the owner placed the order down on the table. "You mean you hooked up with someone? Or did you finally grow some and spill it to your crush of infinite years?"

"Actually, amazingly, she spilled it to me. Well not so much spilled as flood, I mean full out issues and tissues in EM back there."

"But you still haven't done anything yet?"

"You know me and my insecurities."

"Man, she brought us here to do girl chat." Danny griped.

"Shush, I'm listening." Dash growled.

The two girls glanced at them with annoyed looks before moving over to the counter.

"Great, you made them leave, thanks."

"Don't worry, you can catch the rerun." Danny said under his breath.

"Shut up."

Their silence continued with an awkwardness that lasted for the hour, the two of them eating donuts while Jazz chatted with her friend about various sexual inadequacies until she had to catch her bus, finishing with Danny dozing off on the table and Dash poking the stitches in his arm which clearly needed to be taken out, despite having only been in a few days.

"You know, you two would look like a cute couple if not for the thick tension surrounding you." Jazz's friend said, startling Dash and causing Danny to snort in his sleep, a bit of drool dribbling out of his parted mouth.

"Its sexual tension, I'm telling you." Jazz said.

Dash was about to start his now rather composed denials but was cut off by the girl again. "No it's more like an 'I'm going to rip your head off and feast on your entrails if you so much as breathe near me' kind of tension."

"Do you know Manson?" Dash asked rather afraid.

"She's been around EM a few times."

"Joy."

"My bus is here no doubt, hate to miss it." Jazz said, rather eager to get the lead out now.

"I'll be walking her there; you two watch the shop for me?"

"You don't even know us." Dash protested.

"So?" She blinked.

Dash squinted at her. "Are you like, crazy?"

"I've got a few mental issues, yeah."

Dash slouched down in his chair as if touching her would cause bad things. "Yeah I'll watch the place. You go on ahead."

"Great."

The annoying little jingly bell sounded as they left and Dash sighed, looking down at Danny. "Why is it any really meaningful conversations between us would have to occur when you're asleep?" He asked.

Danny chose that moment to let out a very teenager like snore.

"Meaningful, right, what was I thinking?" Propping his head up with one hand he returned to poking the sleeping boy.

A few people chanced a glance inside the door when they didn't see what Dash assumed was the girl to avoid in this place. He shook his head at them and they left. He wondered how they managed to stay in business with a girl like that as one of the owners.

Eventually the poking woke Danny who swatted the finger away and wiped the line of drool from his chin, soon followed by a smack to the back of Dash's head, which sparked a whole new threatening conversation; then the two polished off their now cold meal and chocolate and met the blond girl at the door.

So far it was a very uneventful morning.

~*~*~*

Sam and Tucker were there when they got back, and so were Jack and Maddie, and the cat, and Paulina and Kwan, and for some reason they were all at the table without any threats or snarls being passed.

"Hi sweetie!" Maddie greeted her son. "Did your sister get on the bus alright?"

"No mom, a strange blonde axe murderer kidnapped her and dragged her off to the taxidermist after brutally slaughtering her in front of us." Danny replied humorlessly, ignoring the two people who should most definitely not be drinking coffee in his kitchen. However that very un-Danny-like comment couldn't be said without an awkward pause and everyone facing him.

"Well, as long as she got there safe." Jack decided to say and Danny, having decided that was enough socialization for the moment, headed up to his room.

"So Dash," Kwan said, "you want to head over to the park? We're gonna get together and have a game."

"I…uh. Sure, give me a sec." Dash said, following Danny.

Up in the room Danny paced, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he watched his miniature TV for any ghostly outbreaks. He hadn't gone out last night, or pretty much all day yesterday, and weekends were usually busy times for him.

"Your sister said nothing happened last night." Dash stated from the bed.

"Yeah, as far as they know. This stuff is sometimes more subtle than what you and your friends are used to. Keep an eye out for little strange occurrences," Danny stopped and crossed his arms while pointing to the screen, quite an interesting pose really, "Like a disappearance of hardware in a few stores or houses, maybe a disturbance down at the docks, unexplained simple ordinary occurrences. Don't forget Ember's plots, you've been in most of them. The always started soft and subtle, remember?"

Dash looked at Danny in a funny way, as if he was looking in a funhouse mirror and couldn't quite figure out what angle to stare at. "Don't you ever take a break from this stuff?" he asked.

"And let the town go to chaos? No thanks, I'd rather be told I couldn't walk at graduation." Danny plopped down on his back on his bed and glared at his ceiling. "I admit there've been more than enough times I'd wanted someone else to take the job, but the truth is: no one else can. No one else, not Dani, not my parents, not the Guys in White. No one. I've got no one to say 'Hey it's your shift' to."

"What was all that downstairs? You were really morbid and sarcastic. I could swear I saw hearts pop up in Manson's eyes. "

Danny tensed up at that comment. "I was just surprised by Kwan and Paulina was all. I didn't really want to talk to them; they haven't been the nicest people to me these past years you know. I'm justified in being a little hostile."

Dash stood up and stretched. "Well, tell you what. I'm going down to the park with Kwan, Paulina's probably heading there too, you wanna join?" He glanced down. "Your hostility just might prove useful at some point"

"You mean I'm actually invited?"

"Fenton," Dash looked at him, "it's a public park, or did you forget that since Thursday?"

Danny glared at him and said, "You're just trying to keep me shackled to you."

Dash managed a lighthearted grin. "Sure am, while simultaneously maintaining my social life and improving yours, an accomplished multitasker I be."

"Wow, you 'simultaneously' managed to make yourself sound smart and dumb in a single sentence. I may just have to take you up on that offer." Danny stood up and walked to his door, tossing a grin back at Dash. "Your idiocy may prove useful at some point."

Dash smiled and clicked the TV off.

~*~*~*~

Danny had never had any real use for a car, what with flying abilities and whatnot, so he agreed to ride with Dash, Kwan, and Paulina in Kwan's cute little silver-ish blue 6 Series cabriolet. Danny was at first impressed when he walked around his street corner and found the little BMW, however the looks on his friend's faces said they were not happy about having to hitch their own ride, as the topless car only sat four and Kwan's parents had instilled the fear of the insurance company within him.

Sam and Tucker were more than a little irritated by the continued presence of the "in" crowd, but kept a zip-locked mouth during the discussions of rides to the park. Danny noted, with a bit of wonder, that both he and Dash were amazingly in control of both their little groups. And here he thought Paulina was the leader of the three.

He found himself glancing in the backseat where Dash and Paulina were talking about prom and their plans, matching outfits, what corsage Dash had to get her, and a horse drawn carriage, because she was sick of showing up to parties in limos, she wanted an entrance befitting a princess.

Prom was about a month away, it was nice to think about, really, but Danny didn't think he'd go. Sam had decided to go with a group of other girls at school, deciding that sitting around moping about her lack of dates was too streamlined for her personality. Tucker was asked by some chick he wouldn't talk about. Sam said he was going to build a robot girlfriend. Him? No one, not even one girl remotely interested in going to prom with him, so he just decided to take up Sam's discarded pastime and mope.

"So what are you doing for prom Danny?" Paulina asked, out of all of them, she was probably the only one who'd ever called him by his actual name.

"Nothing," he stated. "I've never been interested in Prom." A lie, and a big one too. Not too many years ago he'd wanted to take her to the prom, then Valerie, then Sam, now? Now he'd be grateful if Dragon Lady wanted to go with him.

Great now he felt guilty, Dora was rarely anything but nice to him, and he'd made fun of her, in his mind sure, but he still made fun of her. Idiot him, no wonder nobody wanted to date him.

"What? Really?"

"Dude, everybody's interested in prom, it's like the greatest party of your life!" Kwan said, never turning from the road ahead of him. His driving teacher must have loved him.

"What, did the girls you ask turn you down or something?" Dash joked.

Danny bunched his shoulders.

"No way!" Dash sat up in his seat and leaned across to look at Danny. "You're kidding me, every one?"

"I only asked four." Danny said.

"That's still three too many." Paulina looked considerably outraged, like Sam when she's found some new injustice to picket against. "Getting rejected once is embarrassing enough, four times; you should at least get a pity date from like, a junior or sophomore. You're a totally cute senior after all."

Danny turned to stare at her, shocked, beat red, with his mouth hanging open. "What do you mean? I'm a scrawny looser, remember? Freshman outrank me in social status." Paulina suddenly looked completely bored by this topic.

"You know what an absolute turnoff is?" she began, "People who look at themselves and only see flaws."

Well, that was unexpected, not. "Say wha?"

Dash stopped listening at that point, relaxing back into his seat and entertaining himself with trying to get Kwan to look at him through the rearview mirror. Kwan occupied himself with ignoring Dash and paying attention to the road.

"How can you sit there, look at yourself, and think scrawny? Sure you're thin, but you're tall thin, slim. You've got the figure of a model, I mean, I don't know girls who've got legs that long, and your eyelashes are far thicker than even boys are allowed." She looked at the two bulky boys in the car with them and then back to him. "You're a different type."

"You're kidding me." Danny groaned and she glared at him. "You know Paulina, I appreciate you being nice and all, but at least make it believable. You're the one who pointed out all my faults last year. Remember? I've got hardly any body hair, I'm deathly pale, I'm not strong at all, and my hair looks like a suicidal mission for brushes. As I recall you described me as 'A skeleton in a wetsuit,' right?"

She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it. Dash howled, saying "He's got you there Paulina."

"You did say that!" Kwan laughed.

"So what? I didn't mean it!" she snapped at them, "I always say things like that."

Sam and Tucker passed by them, Tucker beeped the horn and Danny waved, sitting straight in his seat again and fluffing his windblown hair. He'd never ridden in a topless before, not in a car anyway. It took some getting used to.

"Kwan, you just let that dinky little wagon pass you. In this car!" Paulina changed the subject and Danny felt a bit of tension between his shoulders slip away as the attention was steered away from his datelessness.

"If my parents found out I was reckless with my new car I'd be dead. We're all going to the same place Paulina, so what's the hurry?"

They all remained silent for the remaining two minutes to the park, or maybe Danny just tuned them out. He got the sudden feeling of alienation that always managed to creep up on him during these periods of normalcy. This was just another day to them, but it was so boring. So very, very unexciting.

His life was so hectic. He really wished he could be content with the uneventful.

He got out of the car slowly when they parked, walking over to his friends and away from the depressing display of lazy teen life. Typical, he couldn't even enjoy a regular day at the park. His friends were visibly tense with his arrival, pissed at him, as usual when he momentarily ditched them. They were so territorial over him.

~*~*~*~

Danny had actually looked like he was enjoying himself in the car for a while, even when they were on the embarrassing topic of Prom and his hotness status. Then suddenly it was like he closed up on himself. Kwan had asked him several questions, but Danny didn't hear any of them. He just slowly shuffled over to his friends.

Sam and Tucker were obviously his touchstones. Dash hated that about him more than anything else. Should he find himself faced with a difficult situation he reached behind him and grabbed at his friends, it was pitiful. Some might argue he drew strength from them; really they were his security blanket. And the two were more than happy to play that role, or maybe they weren't aware of his dependence on them. They acted like he was a child they had to hold hands with. He couldn't wander off or make a decision of his own because it might get him into trouble, but when he was off ghost fighting they didn't even cringe.

True he hadn't been around them all that often, but from what he could see they were being more parental than friends.

"Dash, this way! We're over here!" Kwan called, waving the lot of them off towards the open field away from children and trees.

Danny grabbed his friend's arms and drug them over too, despite the fact that they obviously wanted to be elsewhere. They dug their heels in and looked at Danny like he was still a child who needed discipline.

"We could leave," Tucker said, "You don't really need us hanging around here while you're playing. Neither me or Sam are much interested in this game." Sam nodded, not speaking because she'd obviously say something nasty.

"What, we can't all share the park? Common guys, let's just hang out a while?" Danny looked torn.

Dash realized Danny didn't want to be here either, but he wanted to make sure Dash didn't blab. The three of them, all of them hated him and his friends, and Danny's fear of exposure was the only thing keeping them around. Something twisted inside him painfully.

"Fenton!" Dash called, ending their quiet conversation. "Come on! You're on my team!" A few of the kids groaned.

Danny gave one last pleading look at his friends before jogging over to the people Dash was standing with.

With dejected faces Sam and Tucker took a seat on the grass.

~*~*~*~

It became apparent only a few minutes into the sport that these park games were just as popular as real ones. Kids from all cliques were allowed to play, even if they weren't that great, and it was actually kind of fun. Danny was good at the game, well not completely awful, and his powers helped him out a couple times. He caught Dash's smile after he used intangibility to escape a tackle. He felt guilty, but when they took their places again Dash reassured him.

"Sports are about doing the best you can right?" Danny nodded "If you've got a bigger body, or maybe you're slightly taller, or you're smarter than everyone else you don't get kicked out do you?" He shook his head. "So if you've got some extra abilities, who's to say you can't use them?"Dash pat his shoulder, "Do your best."

Danny smiled, but didn't lean too much on his powers in the game. It didn't feel like cheating any more, but he wanted to play with his own strength.

There was no time limit; everyone just declared halftime when enough people got hungry and they all headed out to lunch. A few of the freshman and sophomore kids headed off to the Nasty Burger because it was the only food place they could claim as their own.

It was Kwan, not Dash, who told them most of the others were heading to a buffet place because it was big enough, with good enough food, to feed dozens of upperclassman with bottomless appetites, and it wasn't expensive either. Both Sam and Tucker looked suitably pleased by the decision and Danny didn't have to drag them along this time.

Tucker's girlfriend, who happened to be at the game with her sister, rode with them so Dash figured it was safe to insist Danny ride in the BMW again. Nobody complained the entire ride, and Danny was actually having a good time.

Until about halfway through lunch when the people at the table next to theirs faces started to rot off.

It was an interesting conversation between Danny and Dash, slowly turning into an argument, as was becoming usual for them. Kwan and Paulina, tired of the banter, had gotten up to go get more food. Their table was next to a booth, soon occupied with five people in their late twenties to mid thirties, and they wore clothes that looked dusty and beaten. He paid them no mind, like everybody else, until he saw out of the corner of his eye something moving against the window.

It was an understandable reaction; you see something move you turn to look at it.

Danny stared, causing Dash to stop talking and turn as well. It was a little black kitten, pressed up against the glass and peering in at him with this little gold tag dangling from its neck. It pawed at the window a few times before turning tail and skittering off.

Then the people turned to them, and like that rainy night, their faces started to distort. Dash clutched at the table, his knuckles turning white, neither of them moved. Stiff with fear.

In the light it looked different, blurry, moving, skin slowly decomposing at a rapid pace. Each one was going through a different state, the girl on the right's skin was shrinking, growing tight across her skull, losing its moisture, shriveling up like a mummy, the skin was cracking like dust as she shifted her head in their direction. The man next to her was bloated, like a corpse in water for too long. Parts of his body were going black, his nose was getting too big, too heavy, and the skin was tearing like fabric. It sagged, then dropped into his drink with a 'ploonk.' Skin peeled back on the next two, burning, Danny could smell the charred flesh from where he sat. It was growing taunt across their faces, bright white teeth protruding forward as lips cracked and bled into nothing but strips of flesh.

The last one, the one Danny couldn't stop staring at, wasn't really rotting… Dripping wet he stared at the two boys through red-rimmed eyes, skin flushed from cold. Wounds cropped up on his face and neck at random, squirting blood out onto the wall and window, his head jerked up and his nose shot out a stream of blood to splatter across the dusty, mummified corpse across from him. It was as if he was slowly being beaten.

Danny shivered, unable to breathe as he watched them in their grotesque transformations.

"Why isn't…why isn't anybody screaming?" Dash asked in a squeaky whisper.

The conversations in the restaurant were continuing as usual. Paulina came up and put her plate down, sitting right in front of Danny and blocking his view of the creatures. She looked at the two boys in alarm.

"Are you two okay? You look white, well Dash looks white, Danny's always been white, but now it's worse than even his god-awful pale."

Danny focused on her for a split second before turning his head to view the empty booth behind her.

_At first he had paid them no mind, like everybody else in the restaurant... _

"I don't think I can eat any more," Dash said grimly, "and I don't think I'll be finishing the game with you guys."

Paulina stared at him concerned and Danny suddenly realized that though these two never had a romantic relationship, they really were good friends. He looked over at Sam, and thought about how hard they had worked to make their relationship work out.

No, those memories were buried. As far as everybody was concerned he and Sam had outgrown their romantic feelings without even a single date. Clockwork had made sure of that. He was the only one who remembered anything that happened.

"Yeah," Danny agreed, not really up to explanations.

The two got up and moved towards the door, leaving Paulina to explain everything to those who noticed their retreat.

~*~*~*~

Grimalkin was waiting in the parking lot and Danny wished at this time that he actually did own a car. Scooping up his little cat he turned to Dash, expecting him to say something. Dash just scratched his head, took a deep calming breath, and put his arm around his shaking companion.

Danny was grateful for the silence, his friends would normally be excited, vibrating with energy and overflowing with questions. They looked at this kind of stuff with glee, terrified, but never overwhelmed. It was a good thing at times. But right now he wanted to work this out in his head, and apparently, so did Dash.

They walked back to Danny's house like that.

Dash looked down at the cat his Danny's arms. It looked back at him with wide yellow eyes.

Yellow eyes.

_The rain was pouring down, white lightning illuminating the grey sky… _

…_he saw a black cat dart out of an alleyway ahead of him and across the street, directly towards him. His eyes widened as he looked into glowing green lights before the tiny beast reared back on its haunches and launched itself right at him… _

…_a black cat pawed at the window, a little golden tag dangling from its collar, bright green eyes wide and staring in at them… _

He stopped, Danny moving a few more feet before the arm around his shoulders fell and he was forced to stop and stare at Dash who looked at Grimalkin with frightened eyes.

"Danny…drop the cat." He said shakily.

"What?" Danny furrowed his brow at him.

Dash's lips were trembling as he tried to form the words again. "Put the cat down."

"Why should I do that?"

"I…He's a…It's a…just…just put him down please?"

Danny slowly set the cat down on the sidewalk and turned back to the blonde.

Dash continued to stare at the…thing. Grimalkin was tensing up, a growl forming in the back of his throat.

"Let's…let's go home okay?" Danny said cautiously. Dash nodded and they continued to walk on in the direction of Danny's house, Dash chancing one last nervous glance back at the black cat waiting on the sidewalk.

~*~*~*~

It was ridiculous, really it was. He was a cat, just an average, ordinary cat. Yellow eyes, not green, yellow. He was an idiot for getting so scared over a shoddy memory after a potentially traumatizing incident. Dash picked up a pillow and screamed into it. Everything was going so well, they were having fun! Now where were they?

Danny locked himself in the Ops Center, with the cat, and Dash was stuck down in the living room once again, alone, watching TV.

One step forward to steps back. And to top everything, there was nothing good on! Dash went limp, face in the couch pillow.

Wonder what school would be like tomorrow...


	5. Why Life Hates Me

Dash's fingers brushed lightly across the sensitive volume dial, slowly turning up the sound injected into his ears via headphones as he jogged down the street. He waved to the pastor who stood by the door greeting people as they entered a church he didn't go to but always jogged by early Sunday evening. The aged old man with soft eyes and a kind smile waved back to him like he always did and Dash kept on jogging.

The night looked promising, clear skies, warm, the occasional cloud rolling by casting a small shadow across the early rising moon for a few moments as it drifted. It was a night to lie out in the grass and just stare up into the atmosphere.

That is, if you're not currently helping to track a group of zombie ghosts, which was exactly what Dash was doing. Sure it may look like he was going lazily down a street he frequented on his evening jogs, but that was all just slight coincidence, and his slight upturned face wasn't to enjoy the colorful sky, but to keep his ghostly companion Danny Phantom in sight, and those headphones connected to a strange iPod like device, communication. Yup, he was working today.

He heard Sam and Tucker voice their positions, having difficulty maneuvering their motor scooters into the small alleyways and busy streets Danny zoomed over. They were a block away to his left, down a street named after some plant that probably grew there before it was cut down, burned, squashed, and paved over to build the city.

His mind wandered back to the afternoon, Danny up in the Ops Center doing god knows what, and Jack and Maddie, despite Dash's protests, fixed up the guest room next to Danny's for him. They were, apparently, perfectly fine with him practically living there. Dash wondered about that while listening to the three teens bicker over the line. He fully planned to go home; in fact he was going to go home after helping Danny make his rounds. Kwan picked him up in the morning, and it wouldn't due for his mom to, once again, tell his friends he had spent the night at Fenton's.

People were already starting to get the wrong idea.

He had to do something about that.

~*~*~*~

Sam decided it wasn't worth the effort to argue with Danny and Tucker over the bruises and dropped the subject, instead choosing to focus all her attention on scanning the surrounding buildings and alleys for ghost activity.

This patrol wasn't the norm for them, as during the day they usually waited for ghost attacks, reserving the night for actually looking for them. Nightfall was when the haunts began, but apparently something had changed, or so said Danny, and their ever so fearless leader wanted to investigate. So they were out here half hour before sunset, with Dash.

Sam and Tucker protested against his inclusion, well, she had protested, Tucker just quickly agreed and chose not to face off with the only two people who could possibly strike fear into him, his best friend and his bully. Dash and Danny, Sam acknowledged, were quite the intimidating duo, whether they were agreeing on something or debating it.

And they fought worse than her and Tucker.

Dash, much to her chagrin, kept up with Danny better than they ever did, usually staying only a few meters back under him and easily maneuvering into alleyways and hopping fences. She told herself she could vault obstacles as well as the jock, she simply had to take care of Tucker, who often ended up in some dangerous ghost's clutches, resulting in further work for Danny. Still, it was irritating to see someone else doing their work, and doing it better.

For a while she had thought the worst possible thing was for Valerie to join their group, her gadgets and brilliant fighting skills outmatched them and she would have quickly become the public sidekick to Danny Phantom. Then Jazz, in her peppy "lets name things" helpfulness made her wish Valerie _was _there, at least she took the job seriously.

Now she wondered, while still resenting Dash, if her view of him would change like they did with the two girls. So far he had only been a mild annoyance and a good babysitter for Danny while he'd been injured. Truth be told she could get used to the idea of calling up the obsessed fan boy to play nurse. He was far more qualified to tussle with an angry and hurt Danny then the rest of them, Danny couldn't glare him down like he could with Tucker and her.

He'd been getting rather good at looking menacing these days. Her mind wandered off to his sudden moody attitude changes, usually surfacing around Christmas and when something was seriously bothering him.

She was so caught up in her thoughts she completely forgot where she was going and found herself sliding to a halt in a side street blocked by a wide chain link face. Tucker stopped his scooter with a bit more grace than she did, but squealing tires and black streaks weren't her idea of a turnoff.

"Shit." She said and Danny laughed in her headset. "Shuddup," She snapped. "What street are you over, I lost sight of you."

"Basilisk, down by the docs." She heard Dash say and her frown depended. Pros and cons in this arrangement, she reminded herself, still she'd never, ever enjoy someone play human sidekick better than her, he may have his uses, but his showing her up was not welcome. He can do all the patrolling he wanted when they were all off to college.

"Right. I know where to go. We'll catch up at the beach." She said hotly and clicked off her headset. A dangerous and childish act, but Tucker still had his own and she felt a bit of satisfaction as the subtle static snapped instantly to silence.

She saw the way Danny had talked and laughed and played with Dash and his pals. He had always had a big inflatable ego and this newfound acceptance would no doubt go to his head, as it usually did. They all had their faults. She was passionate about things and tended to forget more important pressing matters, Tucker was power hungry, and Danny was, at heart, rather shallow. She knew this, and she accepted it like any good inalienable rights supporter would. But that didn't mean something shouldn't be done. An alcoholic may accept they're an alcoholic, that doesn't mean they shouldn't stop drinking.

Something had to be done about Dash. Just like something had to be done about Valerie and Jazz and every other person who tried to weasel their way into their group or pull Danny out. She and Tucker couldn't just fall to the wayside.

She wouldn't allow it.

~*~*~*~

They were laughing by the time they left the beach, holding their sides, barely able to balance on their stupid little motor scooters. Dash didn't know what to do, didn't know how to work the thermos and press the release button. He was getting frustrated and neither Sam nor Tucker would help. They just sat on the cold damp sand and laughed until they couldn't breathe and their faces were turning different shades. It was an embarrassing moment for both Dash and Danny, the later crammed into the thermos in the most undignified way.

He didn't even have the glory of having been in a fight like he did when Jazz had sucked him in. No, he had decided, as the sun was setting and the beach just happened to be a brilliant spot for watching it recede, to show Dash how to work some of the Fenton gadgets. After all, if he was going to be hanging around on a semi permanent basis, as soon as this whole thing was resolved he was going to pay Clockwork a visit; he would need to at least have a grasp on how to be useful. Football tackles and Hollywood karate chops didn't really work on things that went intangible.

It was a simple exercise; one he had taught Sam and Tucker after he had learned how to activate the thermos without using his powers, point and press the button. Simple, precise, and only really needing a few tries to get a feel for the unreasonable weight of the metal cylinder.

Thinking back it probably wasn't a great idea to do it at sunset, on a terrain where the light had nothing to block it and cast shadows, where the fading rays could hit you right in the face, or at least hit the windows of nearby buildings. Like the windows of the boat rentals shop with the big shiny metal sign with paint across it that says "We rent Boats" in the window, as if the name 'Boat Rentals Shop' didn't get the message across clearly enough.

Fading sunlight plus shiny metal surface plus amateur 'ghost getter' wielding an open thermos was not an equation Danny really wanted to face that evening, yet there he was, stuck in the thermos after a strategically placed sunbeam had hit Dash right in the eyes and had caused him to stumble and screw his eyes shut, accidentally aiming his 'weapon' at the floating Danny Phantom.

Sam and Tucker looked at the uncapped thermos in silence before tumbling onto their backs in crippling laughter. Dash looked horrified as his eyes darted around the air above their heads, hoping he hadn't just done what he had thought he'd just done.

He looked down at the open thermos, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. Sam and Tucker pointed, trying in vain to form words. He tipped the object over, expecting Danny to come pooling out like a liquefied person filling up a mold, feet first, then legs then hips and so on. Instead he got a shout and a curse from inside. Startled he stepped back, dropping the thermos in the sand where it rolled emitting the worst kind of language Dash or any of them heard from him yet.

Sam and Tucker just laughed harder. They really would have been concerned, if this wasn't maybe the fifth time that year one of them accidentally captured him. He tended to get in the way a lot in his fights, once he and Youngblood had been stuck in there together for three hours because Lancer had confiscated the thermos until after school.

The water touched the edge of the device and Dash snatched it up quickly, fearful the tide would take it away. He clutched it to his chest and glared at Sam and Tucker with malice.

"What do I do?" He asked.

"Ju-Just press-" Sam tried to get out.

"Release," Tucker gasped, on his back now, his heavy breathing interrupted by small shaking spasms of laughter.

"Where's the release?" Dash asked.

"On the thermos," Tucker said and Dash scowled. Sam just laughed harder. It wasn't that funny, but since she was laughing anyway it really didn't matter. Such was the curse of hilarity; at the moment a meaningless noun would make her wet herself.

Now they were walking their scooters off the sand to head home, leaving Dash to figure out the contraption alone with a muttering, cursing Danny Phantom too busy yelling at his retreating friends in an almost inaudible way to help Dash get him out.

One step forward two steps back…..

~*~*~*~

Dash slammed the door to his house hard enough to cause the pictures on the walls to shudder. His mom, in all her beautiful middle-aged glory, poked her head out of the kitchen to stare curiously at him. Dash never figured out how his mother could be such a feminazi yet dress like she was an alcoholic housewife from the fifties. Complete with headband in hair and pearls around her neck.

The only rebellion from the picture perfect woman he called his mother was the flats that adorned her feet, as working seventy hours a week in three inch heels would not make her the peppy person she was. As usual her hair was impeccable and her makeup artistically done to make her look beautiful, yet not hide her 'wisdom lines' as she liked to call her wrinkles.

He smiled at her in the adoring way he always did when he saw her the few hours out of the day. His heart always swelled up when he saw his parents, unlike most of his friend's houses, Paulina living with her divorced father, Valerie having a dead mother, Kwan with his grandparents, he had a perfect family. And he loved being reminded of that every time he walked through the door late to see his mother working to prepare a large family meal despite the fact that she had piles of paperwork sitting on her desk down the hall.

His father screamed from the bedroom, yelling into his cell phone about insane layers and not enough evidence for a warrant.

Deciding it was best not to interrupt his dad he hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible and headed into his room, the thermos still in his hand, capped now, and shut the door on his family, and the world. He had never wanted to shy away from his parents, but sitting there trying to find a single button on a heavy metal thermos that seemed to have a million little lights that all looked like buttons but weren't wasn't what his parents considered sane.

He tossed the Fenton Thermos unceremoniously onto his bed while chucking off his shoes and putting his jacket back up in the closet with his millions of others. There was a frenzied slur of swears omitted from the cylindrical device but Dash ignored them, instead flopping down on his bed and, burying his face in his pillow, he screamed.

Teenagers should not have to go through this much stress in a few days time.

"It's your own fault," Dash declared when he regained his breath. More muffled curses told him the being in the thermos heard him. "I'm sorry, I know I screwed up but it was all your idea, and it is your fault."

The thermos was silent, Dash looked over, it almost looked like it was pouting.

"So, if you tell me how to, I can open the thermos." He said to the device, "I can let you out, if you just tell me how to do it."

Again silence.

"Why so quiet?" he picked up the thermos. "Say something."

Just a quiet swear. Dash blushed at the comment.

"Fine, just stay in there and be bitter." Dash said shoving the thermos on the top of his bed none too gently. "You can just spend the night in there." Shucking his shirt off and kicking out of his pants he sat back in his bed and flipped open his cell phone. "I'm calling your house to say you're staying the night."

There were a series of protests and swear words, Dash threw his pillow at it. "Be quiet Fenton, and get some sleep." He lay down on his bed, feeling the thermos beneath his pillow slip down against the back of his neck. "We've got school in the morning."

There was more noise but the pillow made it almost impossible to hear.

~*~*~*~

Once again Danny found himself sitting on Dash's bed watching the larger teen go through his closet and, though he didn't think it was possible, he was far more pissed, if somewhat dryer.

"Still have the sling?" Dash asked, pushing aside a row of hangers containing jackets to reach a box behind them.

Danny held up the hated material with his pinky, though he really didn't want to as his arm was already mostly healed, he knew he had to just to keep up appearances.

Dash turned around with a T-shirt and jeans in his hand, he nodded at the sling before handing the cloths to Danny.

Danny just stared at the items. "You know it would only take me a moment to fly home and change. You don't have to babysit me," he scowled.

"Listen Fenton, you're in no condition to be doing any kind of hovering or passing through walls or the like, not with those things out there and not with your injuries." Dash pointed his finger in Danny's face. "And besides—"

"That's it!" Danny jumped up, knocking the cloths out of Dash's hand. "I've had enough of your damn overprotective bullshit. You stay at my house without my permission, you follow me everywhere, you trap me in my own damn thermos, and now you tell me I can't even go home and change?! Bullshit!"

Dash looked taken aback. "I was just trying to be helpful."

"Helpful? Helpful?! I think I preferred you beating me up on a daily basis! You are the furthest thing from helpful anyone could ever get! Jaz was more helpful than you and she was unbearable!" Danny halted in his outburst, a tightness in his chest causing him to unconsciously clench the bottom hem of his shirt, but he knew if he showed weakness, if he backed down even slightly, Dash would never get the point, would never understand that _'he'_ was the protector. That he did not need rescuing. That moment Friday night, it was a onetime breakdown; a small glimpse of weakness and frailty that he would never show again, could never show again.

With a deep breath he met Dash's gaze, determined to take his life back. "I don't need a savior Dash, help maybe, advice sure, a decoy to draw attention, hell yeah, but not a savior. Never a savior. I've played the victim too damn long to go back to the sidelines." With that he disappeared, like he did before, a popped bubble. Once again leaving Dash in his room, with the empty unfulfilled feeling of someone who didn't get the last word in on an argument.

~*~*~*~

It was no surprise to Danny that when he popped into his house there was no one around to avoid, he knew that Dash had called last night to say he had stayed over, meaning wine and dinner mess in the kitchen and late sleeping parents wrapped in each other's arms upstairs. So a quick change and a slice of bread were well within his ability, without the use of ghost powers, meaning he could conserve energy for fighting off the day's spectral advances.

Life was, at least, slightly more bearable after his first shower of the week, he had started to smell pretty ripe after two days. The soaking he took on Saturday at Dash's house did not count. It had only taken him a good fifteen minutes to get everything ready for Monday, everybody's favorite day of the week.

With a pat on Grimalkin's head he transformed and flew out the window, hoping his dad wouldn't wake up and look outside.

He had no doubt he would run into an irate Dash while at school, they did share pretty much every class, but it was okay, better actually. A kind, considerate Dash would probably make the high school implode. Yeah, pissy Dash Baxter was better, it was the norm, and norm was what he needed now.

~*~*~*~

Ah the joys of being a high school bully; the power, the thrill, the look of pure terror in the eyes of the submissive, and the hatred radiating from those yet to be broken. What more could any jock want out of his high school experience? What else was there to do? What higher standard could the brainless hulking brutes of these sanctified hallways set for themselves but to be the constant torment of those who would one day rule society?

Dash Baxter, star quarterback for Amity Parks own Casper High, was far from being one of the future rulers, but rather was doomed to forever live his life as the low income worker. If he was lucky nothing bad would happen to his parent's finances and he'd get a little something nice when they finally kicked the bucket. All these future plans meant little to him now, however, and every time he walked through the doors of Casper High he was constantly reminded that a few semesters at the community college were all he really had planned after senior year.

To take his mind off these troubling matters he instantly clicked back into bully mode, instinctively searching out his favorite targets to help ease the pain of failure.

However a he stepped through the doors today he was reminded that his favorite and frequent target was pretty much permanently off limits, and as Kwan, the only football star in the history of Casper High to actually have a chance of success outside of playing for the pros, started to slide up beside him and chat about what happened over the weekend he was only reminded more of how useless he was.

Kwan was trying to ask him about why he disappeared yesterday; he just gave some offhanded excuse about needing to be home early and leaving something and Fenton's house. As far as he was concerned the whole weekend was a complete bomb, from the time he figured out who Danny Phantom was to the big verbal fights that had both him and Fenton snarling at each other.

In fact, whatever upside he might have thought was involved in hanging out with Danny Phantom had been mercilessly shredded by the fact that he also had to put up with Danny Fenton. Suddenly his hero didn't seem very godly and heroic anymore, and Fenton didn't seem so much like a wuss. His entire perspective was changing right beneath his feet and he felt like the world would never right itself. He was caught between protecting someone who couldn't protect themselves, and trusting someone capable of protecting an entire town, and these two were one in the same!

"Dash!" He snapped back to the school, away from the crumbling, folding earth beneath his feet.

"Yeah?" He asked, looking at his best friend, up until Friday he was the only person Dash thought he could truly count on. How much could really change in a few short days?

Kwan stared hard at him, they had stopped at Dash's locker, Dash standing, staring at is combination lock for a few moments before the Asian snapped him out of his daze. Kwan was worried; Dash was acting more out of it than usual. "Are you okay buddy?"

"Of course, why?"

"You know…" Kwan paused, looking hard at him. "You know you can trust me with anything right?"

"Yeah." Dash said. Yeah, right. Like Dash could really trust his blabbermouth friend with anything. He loved Kwan, really he did, but the guy was too gossipy to be trusted with anything you didn't want all over the school. Like Dash's love of Nsync when they were sophomores.

Kwan regarded his short answer and decided he could take a hint. Walking away, back towards their usual group he threw Dash one last worried look. 'Fenton's parents probably experimented on him or something.' He thought jokingly, but new it wasn't something as absurd as that. No, Dash was troubled by something.

But what?

~*~*~*~

"I don't believe it!" Tucker said as he grabbed a copy of the school paper, staring at it with such intensity that it was near certain he was trying to make it spontaneously combust. "This must be a dream, somebody pinch me, this can't be real!" he was practically screaming, shaking as he held the paper. "Ouch! I said pinch, not punch!" He glared at the newspaper girl who had socked him. She flipped her thick brown ponytail at him and moved on.

"What's the ruckus?" Sam asked as she approached her sour yet energized looking friend rubbing his arm.

"Something unbelievable, Sam." He rasped as he turned wild eyes towards her. "Something unbelievable." He shot his fist up in the air and proudly declared. "I won!"

Sam rolled her eyes, snatching the abused paper from his clenched fist. "Shut up Tucker."

"That's the picture I took of Danny on Thursday. Wow I thought it'd take longer to do, who knew they'd have it out by Monday? I can't believe they decided to print it in color!" Sam looked pained and Tucker fell momentarily silent. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"Did you see this?"

"What?"

This, this here! Did you see it?" Sam pointed to the paper.

Tucker looked in shock at the page. "I didn't notice that before." He said squinting reaching for the paper again to take a closer look, willing the text in front of him to change, to display something different. He did not wanting to be reading that line on the cover that his eyes refused to be torn from. "Is that really…?" Sam nodded with a constipated look. "Today's date?"

"We missed his birthday."

~*~*~*~

"My mind is slipping away from me." Dash said, taking a seat next to Danny in their first period, something he had never done before.

Danny turned his head and glared from his position, hunched over his desk, arms crossed to pillow his head, not having the energy, or the will, to sit up even to comment on the obvious state of Dash's mind.

With a sigh Dash propped his head up in his hand and waited for Mr. Lancer, their wonderful first and last period teacher, who got them into this whole mess. Neither Danny nor Dash was very pleased to see him walk in through the door with a light smile on his face and a stack of school newspapers under his arm.

"Something must have happened over the weekend," his need to gossip, even to the deaf ear of Danny Fenton, was almost overpowering. "Wonder if he got a date."

"Good morning class." Lancer chirped.

Danny grunted not bothering to lift his head up from his arms long enough to see the glow in his teacher's eyes, it wasn't worth it. "Or somebody got a good grade on Friday's test."

"Gasp, a response." Dash mumbled. He refused to believe even Lancer was that far beyond help, but sat up straighter when he came by and set a paper down on his desk. "Hey Mr. Lancer." He smiled his cocky jock smile and Lancer stopped, his own smile faltering momentarily.

Danny and Dash, sitting next to each other, were met with a strange assessing glance before the teacher moved on, practically singing good morning back to them. A few girls in the class giggled, hiding behind the paper when the jock looked their way.

"As if this place wasn't weird enough." Dash mumbled, picking up the paper if only to hide behind the stares. Danny didn't respond, perfectly content in his sleepy teenage posture, turning his head away from everything. "What the hell is going on today?" Danny made small mumbling sounds that weren't really words, but sounded like some kind of a response. "Well, Danny Phantom sure looks good on the front page."

After a few seconds Danny groaned softly and sat up, teenage curiosity forcing him to look at the paper. "Yeah, I guess." He said, picking it up. It was pretty good quality, Tucker should have joined Photography; nevertheless it was not worth the effort he used to lift his head up, and he wasn't exactly going to let Dash use it as a conversation starter.

When Danny didn't continue, Dash tried again. "Grimalkin looks good too," then he grimaced, putting the paper back down on the table, why had he brought up that damn cat, oh well, run with it. "People are going to notice it's yours."

"How?" Danny asked, propping his head up in his hand and turning sideways in his seat to face Dash. "He's just a cat, in this picture he looks like nothing more than a ball of black blurry fuzz." It was true, Grimalkin looked more like a toy or bundled up feather boa in the picture. "`sides, most people only see Danny Phantom."

Almost every student was watching them out of the corner of their eye, even if they were talking in hushed whispers and no one could hear what they were saying. "Well, how many black cats do you see around Amity? For some strange reason it's, you know, not common."

Danny was about to point out that he had seen one, before the knowledge that it was really a shape-changing ghost, and it had happened in sophomore year, crept into his brain and he shut his mouth with a click of teeth. Danny let his hand fall and turned to face the front of the class again, his cheeks burning. In his mind Dash just got another point up on the scoreboard.

Dash smiled, glad to have actually won the argument this time.

So much for angry silence.

"Aren't you supposed to be playing totally pissed bully right now?" He asked finally, when Lancer made his way back up to the front of the class and everyone's attention was diverted for a few seconds.

"For what," Dash looked surprised, "because you stormed out this morning? It was understandable, excusable, and after spending all this time with you, predictable."

"Oh, so now I'm predictable?"

"Well, yeah. You're a habitual person, everyone is." Dash shrugged.

"Wow Dash, such big words." Danny sneered. "You get tutored by my sister again?"

"No." Dash said, snippets of the conversation yesterday morning filtered through his brain, forcing him to ignore the jibe. "More like a psychological analysis." He shook his head, "which is why I definitely think my brain is busted, or at least malfunctioning."

"Yeah, because being nice to me just about tears everything apart doesn't it?"

"Listen Fenton, if I didn't want to be nice to you, I wouldn't be nice to you. Got it? The school is making me be decent, carry your books, hold the door open for you, and of course, not beat you up. Nothing more, so everything else is voluntary."

"And would these voluntary acts be triggered by, say, a black jumpsuit?"

"You know damn well it's not all about that."

"Then what is it about Dash? Because you know 'damn well' you wouldn't be half as 'decent' if I wasn't running round saving this town's worthless, ungrateful ass."

"If it's so worthless and ungrateful, why save it anyway?"

"Because I'm the good guy, and that's what good guys do."

"Sure, like robbing banks and attacking mayors and stealing Christmas gifts? Yeah, that's so what good guys are all about."

"Boys," Lancer interrupted and the two looked up, realizing they were getting very close in their argument. There was a silence in the class, Danny and Dash looked at each other, both leaning out of their seats to get in each other's face. "If you're going to flirt please step outside the class." And then, everyone started laughing.

Everyone, that is, except Danny and Dash, who quickly and quietly sat back in their seats in stunned embarrassment and didn't so much as look at each other the remainder of the period, though they had received plenty of glances themselves. When the bell rang they silently gathered their things and left, shoulder to shoulder, not saying a word.

Leaving Dash's unread newspaper on the desk.

~*~*~*~

Dash carried Danny's government text and folder when they went to the next class, it wasn't particularly heavy, but when Danny attempted to carry it himself they noticed two teachers who were greeting students walking into class tense and stare at them funny. In the end, it was better to simply swallow his pride and allow Dash to carry his things.

Being monitored sucked baboon ass.

Danny took advantage of his free hands to crumble his newspaper up and tossed it at Sam, who was walking about a yard in front of them. It hit the back of her head, bounced off, and smacked Valerie in the face, who was walking slightly behind her, blocking his view of Tucker. The two girls spun around abruptly and glared behind them, their eyes scanning for an instant before focusing on him.

Danny smiled innocently and waved, he really hadn't meant to hit Valerie, but mores the better, the girls stopped, Valerie picking up the paper, Sam grabbing Tucker by the shoulder, and waited for the two.

Somewhere between them stopping and Danny and Dash catching up Kwan and Star joined and they all entered Government together. Valerie socked Danny in the arm and gave him the stupid paper back, which he stuck in his pocket laughing.

"This reminds me creepily of our first day in this class." Star said to Valerie as they took their seats in the back. Dash had backtracked to grab Danny by his free arm and tug him to the last row when he tried to sit down somewhere in the middle, Sam and Tucker followed. "Except this time I don't think Dash is planning on dumping a vanilla pudding cup in Fenton's lap."

"From what I hear, white goo should still be expected." Kwan sniped derisively, tearing at a corner of the newspaper he had spent all of last period glued to in the hope that somewhere, in some tiny near microscopic print, some disclaimer would announce it was a hoax. Photoshoped by so and so and in no way pertaining to actual events.

The two girls were about to remark but hushed when the jock had managed to maneuver a resisting loser into their corner.

"I don't sit back here." Danny hissed. It wasn't assigned seating, but they had all sat in the same seats since the beginning of the semester and he didn't like the idea of the popular wannabes sending death glares for hijacking their revolving positions.

"You do today." Dash put his book and folder down on the desk next to his own with a smack. "And you sit next to me next class too, and during lunch, and final period." Danny glowered and the forgotten trio exchanged glances; "and, you're sitting out in P.E."

He never hated having Dash in four of his seven classes more in the entire year than he did just then. "Do you recall that little conversation we had in your room this morning?" Danny sat down where Dash had put his stuff, feeling slightly dizzy.

"You were in his room this morning?" Star questioned with feigned disinterest as she fixed her makeup. Dash glared a warning at Danny, who pretended not to notice. Kwan saw it, however, and raised an eyebrow.

"Spent the night," Danny was too angry to really care what she thought, and too tired to keep having these pointless staring contests with Dash, a throb had started around the bottom edge of his right eye. "Why, you jealous?"

"Danny, really could you stop with that." Valerie said in a hushed voice, curling her fingers around her textbook. "I know you get snarky when you're irritated or just…whenever, but people are beginning to wonder."

"People already wonder." Star clicked her compact shut. She looked at them through the corner of her eye. "Do I need to tell you what they wonder about?"

Danny really wasn't into gossip right now, and pretended to be interested in working, but his pencil wouldn't cooperate, he glanced at his fingers and noticed they were trembling. That throbbing had become more insistent and every pulse sending a pin up to his temple. The light of the overhead projector displaying the daily essay question they had to answer was almost too bright and he had to bury his face in his arms to stop the pain. So much for getting work done.

"Well I did notice a lot of people are looking at us oddly." Dash answered pointedly in the direction of a girl leaning a bit out of her chair in the row over to eavesdrop. She flinched and scooted as far back into her chair as she could. Danny would have snorted, if he felt like it, instead, he involuntarily listened, willing his ears to go deaf.

"How about we start with this" Kwan waved at the two of them, "any reason why you're suddenly all chummy?"

" I thought you guys all went over this Saturday?" Tucker crossed his legs on top of the desk and contributed. "Danny's injured and Dash is helping."

"I seem to recall you being injured before and he didn't do shit for you." Star snapped, Tucker looked startled at her outburst. Something was eating at her. "And Sunday you insisted on hanging out, and were seen leaving together. And some people are even saying you've been," she hissed the next part in the smallest whisper she could manage and still be heard, "doing things."

Danny made a sound that could have been an irritated grumble, could have been an agonized moan. It was hard to tell with his head buried in his arms.

"Doing what?" Dash's eyebrow twitched in irritation and Star looked like she was going to be sick just having to mention it.

Valerie saved her the trouble. "This." She held the school newspaper up to the jock, folded back to the gossip page where a picture took up most of the page, with two columns of text beneath it.

Kwan had a dark, questioning look on his face as he watched Dash's reaction. "Care to explain?"

"Explain what?" Danny asked, curious now and feeling slightly better since resting his eyes. Nevertheless, as soon as he raised his head, his stomach lurched. Stumbling out of his chair he grabbed the pass from the door and rushed from the class so quickly his teacher never got the chance to refuse. He was vaguely aware of his friends calling after him, but the teacher did manage to hold them back, thankfully.

Hold it in, HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!

He slammed into a stall, not bothering to close the door, and vomited. SUCCESS!

He just sat there, trembling, looking down at the toilet until the automatic flush swept away what little he had for breakfast that morning. He felt the disturbed air push against his face and realized with disgusted shock that he was resting his face against what people sat on to crap.

With a scowl he pushed himself up and leaned instead against the cool plastic wall separating his stall from the next, and just breathed. His shoulders were shaking and he couldn't for the life of him understand why, he wasn't even cold, in fact he was burning up. He turned and pressed his cheek to the cool wall and closed his eyes, trying to detach himself from the pain in his chest that threatened to bend him double.

"Fenton?!" He looked up to see three girls who were members of the swarm constantly around Paulina and Star. "Are you okay?!"

The pretty black girl with the beauty mark, he seemed to recall her being one of Jaz's friends, Ashley, knelt down beside him. "You look like hell." She said putting a hand to his forehead, "and you're as hot as it too." She looked over at her friends.

"Please don't," Danny scrunched his eyes closed, "tell me I'm in the girls room."

"You are." One of the other girls, the red head with the glasses, ripped off some toilet paper and brushed it beneath his lips. Great, he had vomit on his face. Just great.

"Come on." The black girl gripped him under his arms and helped him to stand, "Let's get you to the infirmary." And with the three of them, he managed to get up, out of the bathroom, and to the nurse's without much hassle.

The nurse took one look at him and rushed to fix up the bed so he could rest. "Oh dear, oh dear. I knew this whole ordeal wouldn't work out. Just look at you." She made him lie down onto the paper covered plush cushion and he didn't complain, not like he normally would have anyway. What was wrong with him? "What did he do this time, break a rib?" Danny kept his eyes open and tried to explain, but his voice was choked inside him.

"Who?" The blonde with pigtails asked about to leave, they stopped at the door when they heard the nurse 'tsking' and 'tuting.'

"That Dashiel Baxter. I knew, I knew he was the one who hurt him before. Now look at this. Ishiyama and Lancer think they can build bonds by making them work together, but all it does is give that boy time alone to do whatever he wants." Her scowl deepened.

"But, I thought they were a couple?" The girls looked at each other, then moved back over to Danny, who looked pained and was trying to sit up, his mouth moving but nothing coming out. _Gay_, they thought he was **_gay_**?!

"You don't think?"

"Danny?" The red haired girl said, and Danny realized he didn't know her name, just that she worked at the nasty Burger with Ernie and Val. "Hey, we're going shopping tomorrow after school, you want to come?" She asked.

"If you feel better that is." Ashley chirped, a worried look on her face.

"Yeah, if you feel better. We can all go to the movies or something." She smiled, her and her friends nodding. "Paulina and Star and a few of the other girls are coming. It's a girls' afternoon for us since all the guys have somewhere to be."

"We'd like you to come."

"Girls." The nurse ushered them away from the bed. "Leave him be. He's in no condition to be going anywhere." She was a big woman, and despite the sickly sweet voice, quite imposing when she wanted to be. "I'm calling his parents, now shoo."

Danny felt himself fall back onto the bed, the strain of holding himself up too much for him. He looked at the girls leaving the office, wishing he had at least a shred of strength to tell him he was not with Dash Baxter.

But really, he didn't even have the energy to feel real upset about that, just…what was he so worried about again? He blinked, unable to remember.

He just wanted to go to sleep.

~*~*~

Dash's nervousness had escalated from gnawing on his pencil to accidentally biting the eraser off and almost choking on it by the time the bell rang to end class. A wannabe from Paulina's cosmetic circle had brought the room's bathroom pass back to class with the information that Danny was in the nurse's office and probably would not be in school the rest of the day. Every time Dash looked over at the empty seat with book and triple R necessities sitting on the top he felt a sinking in his stomach, like that eraser he'd swallowed suddenly turned into a cannonball. The girl had given him a strange look as she left, not that he wasn't getting strange looks from everybody; he had almost had a stroke when he read that gossip article, but this girl's look was different than those curious, questioning, and disturbed glances.

Hers was an angry, confused kind of glare. Like she was pissed, but didn't know what to be pissed about, or if she should really even be pissed at all.

Reading into it only made his head hurt, and with Danny in the nurse's office after he bolted only made him worry and his head hurt more. Danny could be trying to skip out of school to avoid everyone, but he hadn't even glanced at the paper before practically flying out of his chair.

It was lucky the bathroom was right across the hall, because he looked like he was seriously going to puke.

He pressed his middle and index fingers against his temple and started massaging in smooth circular motions, his mother always did that when she was upset about something. In the end it only made him dizzy and with a sigh he gathered Danny's and his stuff up and left the class, head high and eyes straight, ignoring everybody.

He was going to fucking **_kill_** whoever took that picture.

He had opted not to tell Kwan and Star anything about the newspaper, more because Danny's abrupt departure made the whole thing so trivial and headache inducing than because he didn't want to outright deny it. He simply told them that if they had to ask, after all these years, than they didn't know him as well as they thought they did.

Truth was, these days **he** didn't even know himself that well.

Looking back on that idiotic freshman he used to be and feeling disgust wasn't unusual, in fact many people did it, what he couldn't get around was that he didn't even realize how much he grew up until about three days ago, and he was trying to find some other reason for this change, this gradual maturity, and he couldn't.

Well, other than Danny Phantom and his sudden not so secret identity.

When did that picture get taken? He didn't remember ever making out with Danny in a grassy area, so…maybe a Photoshop? Then again, it could have been a ghost possession? He didn't remember so had he been possessed then? He would have to ask Fenton when he saw him next if he knew what it was all about.

And if he did, and hadn't told him. He was going to **strangle** the dweeb. Danny Phantom or not.

Thing is, he didn't even know Danny Phantom had a secret identity until Friday. He was just another ghost, hanging out around here and protecting everyone.

Maybe they were shape-changing ghosts? Maybe one of them was possessed and the other was a fake? Or maybe it was just a really, really good photo-manip. that no one could see it was a hoax?

Maybe he should be thinking more about his sudden epiphany and less about a stupid school newsletter that could just be some prank.

Hey, maybe it was a prank! Maybe his friends were setting him up! Maybe he should just roll it off his shoulders.

Maybe he should pick a thought topic ans stick with it before he gave himself personality disorders. He shook his head to clear away the resulting strands of thoughts that flittered through his mind, reaching to open his locker to put his stuff away, careful that the bare code said it was his book and not Fenton's before closing the door and turning to return Danny's stuff to its metal stronghold.

It was only when his eye flicked to the locker next to him that it finally, really did hit him. What if he was seriously hurt? What if he had bolted because of a ghost and got injured in the fight and the girl had found him. What if that's what the look had been about?! She thought he had beaten Danny up so badly he had to stay in the health office!

Indescribable images of Danny's broken body flashed like a slide show of crime scene pictures followed on the heels of the revelation, each one disturbing him more and more. He'd been so tired, would he have been able to hold his ground.

Dash's knuckles had turned white as his long fingers clenched the text and note book in his hands, staring at Danny's combination lock, willing its numbered curves to reveal to him the answer to these wild fears. He breathed slowly, sure he was about to hyperventilate. He had to believe Danny could handle it, he could. He **COULD**!

But the thought of Danny being in the nurses office, the protector, the hero, was in pain somewhere and Sam, Tucker, him and just about everybody else were all just going to head off to their next period class, it wouldn't leave his mind.

Was this how the hero was really rewarded?

Sam and Tucker, he realized, honestly believed he could do it all on his own. Danny Phantom, hero and savior of the city, hell the world on the occasion, but damn it all he was still just a teenager. A teenager who was hurt, and even if he insisted he was fine Dash knew he needed protection. Sure not a savior, certainly not a knight in shining armor, but he still needed looking after. And Dash felt he was more than qualified, more so than those two friends of his at least.

He just needed to get past this constant worry was all. With a heavy sigh he opened the locker and shoved Danny's stuff inside. He'd visit the infirmary on his way to his next period, and then during lunch if he was still there, and check in again during gym, and if he still hadn't gone home by the time school let out he'd pick him up and take him home.

Then he'd ask about the picture.

And depending upon the results of that inquiry he may or may not be disposing of a dead dork later on in the evening.

"Dash!" He turned to see Paulina flouncing over.

Great, just great, she had a stupid newspaper in her arms. Why that stupid article couldn't be put in an issue no one read like all the other articles, was beyond him. No, they had to put it in with Danny Phantom on the cover, and stick it to the foreheads of every blabbermouth that would read the gossip column and tell everyone else to grab an issue.

"Dash! Hey." She sang in an eerily familiar way to Lancer this morning.

God everything today was starting to make less and more sense at the same time. Was that even possible?!

"Hey." He smiled slightly, juggling his business math book as he tried to keep Danny's books from falling onto the floor, he was fairly certain there was some kind of method to putting it away, maybe if he leaned it up against the Fenton Peeler, under a small plastic box filled with spare sets of Fenton Phones, next to the shorted out Specter Deflector. "How did things go after I left?" He asked. Referring to Sunday. Many, how much ghost paraphernalia did he keep in there.

"Fine, fine. We all headed back to the field, finished off the game, and went home, the usual for a Sunday." She smiled, leaning against his locker and he knew something he was not going to like would be coming off those pretty, full lips of hers. "The girls and I, we're going out shopping tomorrow after school, and we wanted to know if you'd come along?"

"We've been through this; I know have terrible taste in fashion, but I'm not going to let you girls dress me up again." With a huff he managed to shove the door closed. Screw it, if it all fell out tomorrow it served the dope right. You'd think he'd keep it immaculately clean compared to the rest of the boy's life if for no other reason than because he was shoved inside on a regular basis. Nothing like a pencil jammed somewhere it shouldn't be to inspire someone to be tidy. His brow furrowed, yeah right. "Isn't Tuesday the all girls shopping spree day of the week?" He asked, glancing down at her.

Paulina giggled. "Yeah, but Dash you don't count." She pushed away from the locker and started walking off. What the hell? Didn't count? As what? As a guy or as a guy not invited? 'You don't count.' Is there any word in there not meant to attack his manliness? "Oh, and your boyfriend is coming too, so no sneaking off into dark corners." She said with a wink and several people in the hall turned away from friends and lockers to stare at him.

His cheeks burned.

"We're not dating!" He cried and Paulina turned to look at him in mild surprise blinking her painted eyelids in confusion. "We have absolutely no romantic feelings for each other," Dash declared pointing his finger down at her, "and before you ask no sexual feelings either. God we didn't even like each other until Friday."

"So, what changed Friday?" Paulina asked.

"He —" Dash shut his mouth real quick, spine going ramrod. He was not just about to say that! He was** not** about to tell Danny Phantom's number two fan, aside from himself, that her Ghost Boy was someone who crushed on her for years. Biting his bottom lip a second he glared down at her. "Danny and I don't like each like that."

"Danny?" Paulina asked with a slight smile, "So its Danny now?" and before he said anything else she sauntered off with a smile.

God, did nothing he say pierce that thick hair of hers?!

He glared down at the tiled floor, jaw tight, fists clenched so tight around his math book he feared he'd rip it in two, right through the cardboard cover and everything. Trying hopelessly to ignore the whispered conversations going on around him, the curious stares, the assumptions. He was the King of Casper High!!! They did **_not _**do this to him, they did **not** question and speculate behind his back, he did **not **walk down a hallway of whispers and points. **_It didn't happen_**. Not to **him**.

Not to **_Dash Baxter_**!

With a clenched fist he punched the lockers using enough force to rattle the whole isle, leaving a warped dent in a Danny's door and startling everyone. He leaned his head on his forearm against the lockers, looking away from everyone, their silent stares at his back.

This simply did not happen to him.

Or rather, it wasn't supposed to.


	6. Scars

Danny groaned, splashing water on his face in a futile attempt to pacify the microscopic construction workers hammering down on his brain. The nurse coughed lightly from her position near the door and he quickly wiped the water from his eyes with his forearm before sending her an assuring smile.

"It's okay; I was just a little exhausted is all." He said and she nodded.

"Your parents are on a call just outside city limits," she informed him, "they'll be here in an hour or so, so go get your things. When you get home, go straight to bed. No games, no TV, no reading, and no homework. I'll give your teachers a note to excuse you until tomorrow." She seemed to struggle against herself, then added. "Dash came by to check up on you, I sent him away but he said he'd stop again next period. I'll give the note to him." She studied Danny's reactions suspiciously, and he was careful to keep his face neutrally oblivious as he watched her back in the mirror.

Had it been someone else he would have had no problem showing the grimace he squashed down at hearing the jocks name, but the nurse had gotten it in her head that Dash was dangerously abusive, and since he had woken to her reading a copy of the paper she probably figured him some kind of rapist now too.

She turned to leave the small health office's bathroom but stopped. "Paulina stopped by when you were asleep as well," this time Danny did show his surprise, "to remind you of the shopping date. Don't go if you're not up to it, they can be very energetic when at the store, and Mr. Baxter will be there with them." She almost curled her lip at the name.

Danny thanked her, reassuring her once again that he was simply tired and Dash had absolutely nothing to do with it. Though he highly doubted she wouldn't bring it to the principal or Lancer's attention, and they would probably all end up here again tomorrow for more analysis.

This time with his parents, and maybe Dash's, and they'd probably bring up the gossip in the paper, and who knew else. And what were Sam and Tucker's parents going to do when they got wind of the rumor?

Gad damn it all.

~*~*~

There was nothing more absolutely unnecessary in Dash's life right now then basketball. Sure, maybe football would have had a slight hold on his schedule even with the Danny Phantom thing, but basketball had always been a filler sport, something to do when he wasn't doing anything anymore, and gradually had become a fun pastime.

It was as Lancer told him in freshman year when he talked about joining the team, Basketball may be a great 'sport', but football was a lifestyle. However, having to play the game in gym with a bunch of idiots who couldn't remember the rules, it annoyed him.

It didn't help that during the game Dash's teacher and classmates were giving him appraising looks, totally non subtle appraising looks. As though now that a newspaper article, in the **_gossip_** column, said he was gay he'd suddenly wear rainbow rubber wristbands and have a lisp and dye his hair unnatural colors, like blue or flamingo pink, though he had seriously considering going brunette for a while junior year, Paulina and Star said brunettes were sexier after all.

He wasn't so agitated about the looks, he'd be giving them too if he had read something about his teammate that surprised him, it was the thought of Danny Fenton, the towns god damned hero, lying on some stiff cot in the infirmary that tweaked at his nerves. He had tried to visit again after math, but the busty nurse, whose first name was probably Olga or something like that, had given him the evil eye and shooed him away. Saying something about stopping by after school to deliver something.

Dash knew school nurses, like science, math, and music teachers, didn't particularly like jocks. He wasn't really surprised to be turned away, when the popular, successful, and rich sports players got hurt they were sent to their private doctors and massage therapists, not to some underpaid school nurse. Not to mention he had sent his own fair share of losers to her door throughout the year.

But just because he expected it, in some disconnected portion of his mind, that didn't mean he couldn't be pissed about it. His hero and ward was laying, looking for all the world like he was unconscious when he had glimpsed him through the entranceway during passing period, in that cold room without anyone in there to keep him company but an overbearing burly nurse with a voice like a little too much sugar in the coffee.

"Baxter, get your head out of your ass and get back to work!" Mrs. Tetslaff shouted and he almost tripped over his own feet, startled out of his thoughts.

Shaking his head he focused on gym. He couldn't keep worrying about Fenton like this, he's a big kid, or rather a scrawny kid, but he could take care of himself and had been doing so for the past, what four years? Longer? When did Danny Phantom first start to show up? Whatever, he had his own problems to worry about, and his own burly woman to be weary of.

"Baxter!"

The yell rattled his brain, shaking out all the loose parts and focusing him perfectly on what he was supposed to do.

The last thing he should be doing was basketball, but it was the only thing he had left that he could get lost in.

~*~*~

Danny knew he had promised that he would go straight to bed, and that was exactly what he had meant to do, exactly what he had wanted to do, as he practically crawled up the stairs to his room. But somewhere between stripping down to his boxers, because sleeping in his jeans made him uncomfortable, and actually reaching the bed he made the unfortunate decision to look down.

And now he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror contemplating the horrific changes happening to his body. A deep breath, then another, god he had seen moldy black bananas that looked healthier. He was a walking lattice of discolorations, slashes of black and angry red with just the barest hint of green edging around it all like an ectoplasmic glow. It reached down his torso, where the original smattering of bruises had formed, and dipped low around his waistband, hovering there as though afraid to delve deeper, or had yet to have the time, then streached up across his chest towards his shoulders and down his arms like thick veins of pollution until it brushed the tips of his fingers, thin little wisps of black lines looking for all the world like felt-tip pen tattoos done in usual teenage boredom. The only hint of purple left on his body was the welt that had come from the crashing blow of the projectile, and that had become brighter and more disturbing with the rest of his body, like some jewel in the center of his being.

Before long, he'd be darker than Othello.

Danny felt the scratching thought at the back of his mind, like a dog begging to be let in, that he had some strange ghostly version of gangrene, but discarded the thought. This was something far different.

He had lied to Dash and his friends when he had told them all it didn't hurt, it did, horribly, but not at all like a bruise. Danny couldn't quite explain it, he had always had a high pain tolerance, what with ghost fighting and bullying and just basic accidents that happened around the lab, but this pushed his limits. He flexed his hands and felt the sharp prickles of pain shoot up through his arm to grip at his chest.

Removing his boxers Danny saw that the discolorations would no doubt take the same route as his shoulders, stretching down his legs along the upper lines of his bones and spreading out from there, the thought disturbed him and he quickly grabbed a robe, covering himself from his own searching eyes.

Grimacing he walked over to the tub, plugged up the drain, and turned on the tap at its highest point of heat. He made an attempt at shouting down to his parents that he was getting in the bath, but all that came out was a hoarse gurgle.

Fear and fatigue had clogged his throat.

Knowing that they would hear the water running and come to their own conclusions he turned his attention back to himself. It was so easy these days, transforming, like going intangible and reaching into his locker, he barely had to think about it anymore, sometimes not at all, and it would happen. So when he shed the bathrobe, not wanting it to go through one of the very awesome, but slightly annoying, changes clothes and various other apparatus went through when he transformed while connected to it, it was satisfying to see his bare feet already clad in squeaky, white rubber boots before it even touched to the floor.

When the tub was full, and the steam was sure to last a long enough time to give the right impression, he dropped a bar of soap into the water to give off the 'bathing smell' and sailed through the roof.

The pain in his body flared whenever he moved, and the dizzy feeling he had hanging over him since Dash first realized how to release him from the Thermos that morning kept sweeping down and clouding his mind, but all that for him just seemed like a typical day.

Which could pretty much mean he wouldn't live past his thirties if this kind of stress was viewed as normal for him, just as well he didn't mind so much as long as no one attacked while he was this messed up inside.

Actually, Danny stopped and hovered above the city, crossing his arms, brow furrowed in thought, up until a few days ago ghosts cropped up like usual, a few stray one-timers not yet expunged from their usual haunts, a couple ghost-zone escapees whose names and faces he actually bothered to remember, if mispronounced and/or mixed up, and the occasional actual big battle with people, err ghosts, like Skulker, or Ember, or someone equally challenging, but still as uselessly time consuming.

Lately it seemed, if he could get away with one more cliché in his superhero career, a little too quiet.

Other then the shambling legions of the unruly, nobody seemed at all interested in destroying him, or capturing him, or tearing him limb from limb, aside from his parents of course, or even taking over the planet, well Amity Park at least.

"Wonder what everyone's up to." He questioned aloud, scanning the bustling streets of his town. "Guess I could always go check up on things in the Ghost Zone, but it's not like it's all that uncommon for them to take a few days off."

It was true, after a few good battles, usually something big that either saved ghoul butt, or pretty much pummeled everyone's collective ghostly morale, many of the bigger, badder, and more frequent ghosts took a bit of time for planning, forming alliances, creating new techniques, or just relaxed. Leaving him with nothing but small fry down at the docs, and the Box Ghost, to deal with.

Yet even the annoyances that were harbor warehouse hauntings, and the Box Ghost, were nowhere to be found. Danny, in all his years of ghost fighting, had never had such a long period of rest. There had always been some kind of nameless blob of ectoplasm wreaking havoc somewhere, but not here.

Not for almost four days.

Just those rotting specters and their creepy appearances, and they only came up twice, and only the first encounter could accurately be deemed hostile, not that he didn't file scaring the afterlife out of him under reason to kick ass. Because he totally did.

And that dream. The ghost in the restaurant had born such a strong resemblance to the boy in his dream, to **him** in his dream. Had they somehow synced up and he experienced the ghost's death? It would explain things, and the ghost might not feel hostile towards him anymore, if they had felt hostile towards **him** in the first place.

Hi shoulders slumped. He was far too tired to bother thinking about all this alone, he would just have to wait until Sam and Tucker, and unfortunately Dash, to come over after school so they could put their heads together and figure out the mess. He wouldn't show them the marks though, that would just worry them and he'd have to listen to Sam mothering him and Tucker being all uncomfortable and concerned, and needless to say Dash would throw a bitching.

No, he could not handle Dash's fan-boyish level of concern right now when he had strategizing to do.

He looked down at his gloved hand, clenching it into a tight fist level with his clavicle, feeling the searing pain rush up and embrace his heart in hot fire. He could almost picture the lines striking through his hand, pulsing with dark energy like some anime-like affliction. With a sigh he let his hand fall back to his side and began drifted off in the direction of the docks. He could always try to check out some of the warehouses and catch up on the local ghostly gossip.

Translating of course into beating the crap out of some spirits until they coughed up answers as to why it was so quiet.

~*~*~

Dash and Sam sat opposite each other in fifth period, eyes locked, fiery determination raging within the sockets turning irises to bright embers and furrowing brows down in deep concentration. The tension had been bubbling up for the majority of the class time, the teens having been sending furtive glances filled with purpose towards each other with the unmistakable message woven between the casual lock of eyes. `_There would be no mercy.'_

Tucker glanced nervously between the two, eyes darting back and forth in worry and apprehension. He had expected it to get a bit competitive between them; it was after all their very nature to fight one another even before being thrust into this situation, but this clash of wills went beyond even his calculations.

It seemed everyone in the room was waiting for the next move.

"Three of hearts?"

"Go fish."

"Damnit!" And the tension dissipated.

Tucker let out a sigh as the move was switched to the next person in their group, Lester, who never did get the whole idea of Super Go Fish.

"Got any aces Tucker?"

"Ace of what?" he asked. Tucker had all four types of aces in his hand at the moment and knew from the previous circles that Lester only had an ace of spades, Dash had the ace of hearts and of clubs, and the ace of diamonds was still in the deck, but he still felt the pricking need to ask the question.

"Why do I have to say what ace it is? Shouldn't they all work the same?" The small group groaned once again, they had explained this to him five times already.

Website Design fifth period had to be the most lax, restive time of the school day, not because it was an easy class, but because the period was filled with tech geeks and popular kids, all of whom already had personal websites and learned how to operate Dreamweaver early on, and as such finished the textbook, if you could call it a textbook, before the second semester had even started.

Problem was the school district network filtered out big bandwidth eaters. So MySpace, Gaia, Hi5, YouTube, and other such teenage necessities were inaccessible to the populace. Unless the teacher had some wild hair up his ass or the principal or some evaluator came in, the period was mostly passed with fifteen students, give or take depending if the slacker dropout wannabes attended, finding some way to relieve the boredom.

Thus why Mikey, Lester, Tucker, Dash, Sam, Paulina, and Ashley all sat in a circle on the big square meeting table with the combination of two decks of cards between them, a considerable change from the rounds of solitaire they were used to doing at their respective computers.

"Super Go Fish means you have to have the exact copy of the card Lester." Paulina answered in an annoyed tone, even she knew how to play this game.

"But why?"

"Because it makes it more interesting."

"Why make it more interesting? Its Go Fish, it's meant to not be interesting."

He had a point, but when you have almost a complete hour of nothing to do but stare at your desktop and listen to a playlist, making even a boring game of Go Fish between classmates a slight bit more entertaining was welcome.

"Just say what ace you have!" Sam snapped and Lester asked for his ace, Tucker gave it to him, Lester then asked Paulina for a card she didn't have, drew from the deck, and then Tucker proceeded to ask Dash for his ace of hearts, which Dash grudgingly handed over, and the game continued on from there.

Fifth period was the most lax and restive period of the day, but god was it boring.

~*~*~

The dock`s warehouses were strangely deserted, even for early afternoon.

Not deserted of citizens, there were plenty of those meandering about doing various odd jobs only people who worked down at the docks really understood; rather it was completely devoid of all ghostly presence. Which, in Amity Park the most haunted city in the United States, if not the whole flippin world, said quite a bit.

He slipped in and out of the warehouses quickly, only staying inside long enough for a quick glance through and a chance for his ghost sense to react. Nobody bothered to stop him, even when they did catch a glimpse of him zipping through the walls; they were well used to him at the shipping yards. In fact it was probably the most popular place for him, second only to Casper High itself but since that was just full of teenage fans it really didn't count. With all the ghostly activity at this place it was hard to get work done, Danny Phantom had always been welcome to come down once or twice a week to straighten things out and apprehend some of the spiritual populace. Not all of course, there were some permitted ghosts, like ghosts who prevented drowning and who led ships to safety on stormy nights, all that clichéd yet hilariously true seamen stories.

After giving a thorough, and time consuming, check of some of the more popular ghostly hangouts in the vicinity Danny admitted defeat, swallowed his pride, and headed down to the break area, not a designated sector for breaks, but rather a place where the workers simply congregated.

It was actually just an old lot where a moldy warehouse once stood but was torn down when the roof collapsed, they had never rebuilt it and as such there was this big vacant lot stacked with empty miscellaneous crates, equipment, and other such nonsense. It was always loud and playful, especially on a nice day when people were well past their early morning grumblings and far from their late afternoon exhaustion.

A couple guys called out to him when he landed, ghostly tail splitting and taking the shape of two long legs and squeaky white rubber boots in a minor flash of dark light, and he waved to them in response, heading in they're direction.

"Anything lately?" he asked casually, proud that the worry and weariness didn't invade his voice.

"Naw actually, not a spook. Strange, even that overall fella been missin."

"BoxGhost too? That's strange." Danny ran and hand through his hair. "When did everything quiet down?"

"Friday night, the big storm was the last we saw a any of them," another man said

"Ol Jan usually hangs around the Pioneer those rainy nights, "replied the first, "but when we went up ta greet her she weren't there." The burly man jutted a finger out to the old boat dragged up onto the roof of a big warehouse. The Pioneer was a sunken wreck that had surfaced one rainy night bringing with it the ghost of an old fisherman's wife. She didn't do anything really, harm or good, but just hung around her boat every now and then and scoffed at the workers. The guys had taken a liking to her after a while, said she was like a stubborn old boat, Danny never did get the metaphor.

She was borderline repeat ghost though, always doing the same thing over and over again. Danny had met a few of them these past few years. Ghosts who were stuck in the moment of their death, never doing anything different or seeing the world around them. Always chased by the memory. Danny hated encountering them, because the thought of being stuck in a reoccurring loop year after year. It troubled him.

Jan however, she had broken the loop when her boat had been disturbed, she still did the same habitual movements but they weren't like what he had witnessed before, and she always paused whatever she was doing to talk.

It gave him hope for the others.

"Yeah, Jan doesn't constantly show herself these days, but she's always around on rainy nights, gets real edgy." There was a crowd now, everybody talking about the strange disappearance of ghosts. "But she wasn't there."

"All `dem other ones who get riled during the showers weren't causing nothing either."

"Every crack was calm and quiet."

"Even that weird one with the crates."

"Yeah, and we just got some new ones too, surprised me he wasn't looming."

The Box Ghost missed the new shipment? Something wasn't right.

As much as the dockworkers wished there weren't ghosts around, they had gotten used to having them. Amity Park's Harbor, completely ghost free? "Something's not right." He repeated aloud, immediately flying up and zooming off, leaving the workers to chat amongst themselves.

Figuring he'd gathered enough information for the moment, and that his bath was probably cooled, he headed back home to get some rest and try and figure what the disappearances meant. They may not mean anything at all, may not be linked in the slightest to the zombie ghosts and his discolorations, in fact all three could be completely unrelated and he could be going though just yet another weird ghostly metamorphosis, like with puberty when his powers had virtually developed a mind of their own for a few months.

But then again, they could all be tied together in some elaborate plot or universal divine plan, and he could be heading straight for yet another big boss battle with some knew unknown ghost.

Back in his bathroom he breathed in the smell of soapy bathwater, a bath really would be nice. Pulling off a glove he tested the water, just as he suspected it was cool, but that was fine, he had taken a quick shower that morning and was relatively clean. Glancing at the small black lines on his exposed skin his swore. A bath may be nice, but all it would do would be remind him of his bruises. With a frustrated grunt he pulled the drain plug, toweled off his hand, and shoved the white glove back on.

He had to figure this all out, before things got nasty.

There was a knock at the bathroom door, startling him.

"Danny? Sweetie you've been in there for a long time, did you fall asleep?"

With a start he quickly transformed back to his human self, the misty air hitting his bare skin and raising the goose flesh from wherever it lay dormant within him. He had completely forgotten he was naked under the suit, then the doorknob was already turning. Barely managing to grab the discarded robe as the door opened and his mother stood in the doorway, a worried look on her face, Dash, Sam, and Tucker in the hallway behind her peaking over her shoulder.

"Do you mind?!" Danny screamed, his hands flashing in front of him to close the fabric, hiding the marring discolorations and his nudity.

"Sorry!" His mother yelped, quickly shutting the door "Wait for him in his room kids, kay?"she instructed before marching off towards the stairs.

Tucker coughed and started to head off in that direction, walking a few paces before he noticed the absence of companionable footsteps on the hollow floors. Glancing back he noticed Dash and Sam were still standing there, staring at the door.

"Uh, guys?" They jolted and cast a quick look out to each other with a blush, then turned to follow Tucker, who rolled his eyes heavenward.

Why was he always the one to have to notice this crap.

~*~*~

It didn't take long for Sam and Tucker to get comfortable with Dash, Danny realized when he walked into his bedroom, in his bathrobe, hoping to whatever divine entity that didn't currently hate him that he didn't smell like the docks, he was supposed to have just gotten out of the bath after all.

Dash, Sam, and Tucker were sitting casually in a circle in his room, eating from a bowl of chips, and going over their Government homework. Danny thought it was an interesting thing, though to anybody else, like his parents, it would seem just an average study party. All Danny could see were a sports hierarchy member, and anarchist, and a new ager discussing politics in a civilized manner. It kind of made him want to laugh, and he would have, sure, if he wasn't so damn tense from the absolute quiet from the overlaying spiritual plane. The totally out of place, and out of character scene in his room only made him feel even more displaced and on edge. No ghosts and no fighting? Just four high school seniors studying. It was so normal, too normal.

Normal was not normal!

He swallowed hard, shutting his door behind him and dumping his used cloths in a pile on the floor he tried to go for a casual stroll into the room towards his friends.

And Dash.

Dash was the first to look up at him, and the friendly smile that crossed his face made his stomach quiver. Adjusting the strap on his robe uncomfortably, he tried to remember the last time he saw that familiar smile, in his dream when he had fought Nocturne; soft and welcoming, pulling out a chair for him like some old fashioned chivalrous gentleman. He hadn't thought much about it then, more focused on the fame, the acceptance, and of course the satisfaction of Sam sitting next to him, warm and intimate, but he didn't exactly know why Dash was there in the dream, as a friend.

With as much grace as his uncoordinated body could achieve he folded himself down beside them, grabbing a chip from the bowl, letting a slight irritation slip down his thoughts like a child down a waterslide that the one he grabbed was barely a fragment. Sam laughed at his pout and with a hurt glare at the bowl of ultimate betrayal he tossed the sliver into his mouth and grabbed a handful.

Vengeance was his!

Now that he was on the train of thought, both he and Sam had had the exact same dream, well minus a few details, but it was the same setting. He, Dash, Tucker, and she, all friends eating lunch together just the four of them. Like some elite group.

Was that why it was so easy to accept that he was there now? Because of some underlying wish to not only be excepted by the general populace of the school, but by Dash himself? Danny couldn't believe that, not at the moment anyway. No, it was only because Dash had always seemed the doorway. The chance to get into the popular crowd and close to Paulina. After all Paulina really ran everything, Dash had to kick his own friend out of the group when Paulina let Danny join. And Dash was so easy to get the better of, so easy to impress and avoid. He was like an open door.

It was only natural that Danny get a little obsessed with having Dash accept him, he was the key to the group right?

"So we're all agreed about the report?"

Danny looked up from the interesting forest of fibers that was his carpeted floor to his companions, nodding and muttering a yes. Sam looked absolutely exuberant about the decision, Danny could only stare confusedly.

"Uh, could you repeat that?" He asked with a twitch of his eye.

"Fenton you weren't even listening." Dash groaned, as if being distracted and not understanding things weren't what _he_ did daily. "We were talking about the big group project."

"Uh, what project?"

"Oh yeah that's right, you ran out before the announcement." Tucker leafed through his disorganized notebook to retrieve the handout they had gotten in class that day. "The teacher wants us to research a branch of government and present it to the class."

Danny glanced over the paper, not really interested. "It says partners of two." He stated.

"Yeah, You and Me, Dash and Tucker." Sam said satisfied.

Danny blinked. He kept forgetting there were four of them now. He turned a raised eyebrow to the blonde. "What about Kwan?"

Dash shrugged. "Probably will do it with Star, the girl's a total mooch in a project but Kwan pulls A's out of his ass."

"Nice image." Tucker muttered, putting his notebook away. Danny stared longingly at his bed, again not really interested in any of this.

"The nurse got the teachers to excuse you from the homework and any assignments, so you don't really have to make anything up today, but Mr. Lancer kind of insisted I bring these to you." Dash handed a depressingly thick pile of papers to Danny, who immediately fell into petrified terror.

He'd never get to sleep.

"Here Danny." Sam said without looking, just passing her worksheets towards him. It was pretty much habit to simply let Danny copy them rather than waste valuable time trying to hammer the days lessons into his exhausted drooping head. Danny simply nodded, shoving another handful of chips into his mouth as he quickly scribbled down the answers to the math worksheet.

"I don't have these classes with you." Danny whined under his breath, looking at the other sheets of paper. "What are these, saved up from last semester? I don't remember any of this."

"We learned them last week," Tucker pointed out, "while you were attempting to learn by osmosis." He put his hands together and tilted his head against them to illustrate sleeping.

"That could be your next science experiment Danny." Sam joked.

Danny just grumbled and finished copying down the classes he shared with Sam and Tucker. Between the two of them he only had three mutual assignments, luckily they were the thicker pages, but it left the last writing assignment for Mr. Lancer's English. Both Sam and Tucker were in AP classes, the jerks.

"You don't have to copy so fast Danny, we're not going anywhere." Tucker said. "No need to give yourself a cramp."

"To late." Danny said dropping the pencil onto the page to roll down into his lap and flexing the fingers on his dominate hand, swiveling his wrist. "But I'm done."

"Record Time!" Sam grinned.

"Shut up." Danny shoved her shoulder with his left hand.

"Alright, now that we've managed to keep to our vow of Homework Before Ghosts for yet another night."

"Praise HBG." Sam and Danny sang in unison, causing Dash to blink stupidly at them.

"Right. Well, now that it's over with, let's get on the topic of exactly what's been going on lately."

They all turned expectantly to Danny, which was absolutely fantastic because he was still rolling his wrist in circles and staring down at his papers. What to write for his essay, maybe if Lancer's illegible handwriting wasn't what the little note at the corner of the page was written in he'd know the topic. All the typed print on the page said was a five-paragraph essay using a cause and effect style and typed in MLA format. What the hell was that supposed to be? Wasn't MLA for research papers? Lancer was contradicting himself again.

"Hello? Fenton, you still with us?"

Danny stilled his wrist, realizing that moving it like that was now starting to cramp up his arm, and looked at his friends, and Dash.

"Uh, yes?" He answered.

"What's been happening lately?" Sam asked slowly. "Nothing on the TV about ghosts recently, and you've had some quiet patrols when we were there, so what's up?"

"Yeah dude, what'd we miss?"

Danny sighed. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?" Tucker pressed.

"There's never a nothing, Danny."

"I mean nothing!" He said. "I mean absolutely nothing has happened in the last few days! No attacks, no disturbances, no appearances, not even the BoxGhost! And there wasn't even a faint imprint of post human consciousness down at the docks, the most haunted freaking part of the whole damned down!"

"Okay, okay no need to shout." Sam said, leaning as far away from him and his aggravated fit.

"I'm not shouting!" He said loudly, Dash swiftly clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah you are." He said harshly. "Jeeze what the hell if wrong with you Fenton?"

"Yeah dude, what's the matter, we only asked."

Danny made a muttering sound behind Dash's hand.

"What was that?" Dash asked, getting strange glances from all three of them. "What?" He asked Sam and Tucker.

Danny bit.

"Youch! What was that for?"

"I couldn't speak around your big meaty hand!" Danny shouted.

"Shut up! You're shouting again!"

"So are you!"

"Guys chill!" Tucker grabbed a pillow and smothered Danny with it the same time Sam threw her textbook, hitting Dash in his hard chest with a thump. "Someone will hear you."

"Ow," Dash yipped. Danny struggled under Tucker trying with little success to get him off him. Not because he couldn't breathe, because he could, but because the guy was kneeling on his chest and sending fire through him. He felt like every little broken blood vessel that formulated the grotesque discolorations were stabbing at him with cattle prods.

Finally he managed to remember he had ghostly powers, and simply went intangible, sinking through the floor to let Tucker fall on his ass, then reappearing beside Sam, who looked very satisfied with the fact that she got to strike Dash with a book.

"Okay, so we're all calm now right?" She asked sounding like an annoyed, yet pleased babysitter who just got a bunch of rambunctious kids to sit still for two whole seconds and nothing more. Dash nodded, rubbing his sore chest, and Danny just grunted, crossing his arms over his own chest trying in vain to block out the painful throbbing. Tucker picked himself up off the floor and threw the pillow back on the bed. "I think we all know why we're so tense." The three boys looked at her. "It's the article," she said with conviction "it has us all so wound up in knots and agitated that we're bursting out in anger at the littlest things."

"Like I care about some stupid gossip column." Dash muttered, plopping his butt back down on the floor. "They post things about me all the friggen time."

"They call you gay all the time?" Sam challenged.

"Well, no, but it's no different than any other lie they spread." He brushed it off with a sniff. "Who cares if I'm queer anyway? They say that about jocks all the time. Fenton'll be the one with 'faggot' written across his locker, not me."

"Sam." Danny said, halting whatever puffed up remark she'd been about to spew. "What would you suggest we do?"

"Protest." Tucker muttered and Sam sent him a glare.

"We could write a complaint to the principal." She said proudly. "School isn't a free press, it's private and besides even if it was, it's libel! They can't print whatever they want, no matter what they claim."

Dash scoffed. "Better take it to Mr. Lancer." He said. "The principal has as much control over this school as you do. Everyone knows Lancer runs the place."

"A classic example being Friday?" Danny offered, Dash colored a bit in embarrassment. "Lancer may have discipline under his list of responsibilities, but Mrs. Ishiyama has the final say and everyone knows it."

"Fine, take it up with the principal if you want." Dash huffed. "But I'm telling you it's a waste. Calling attention to it just makes it look more real. Ignore it, it'll pass."

"Sure," Danny was not convinced, and the last thing he wanted was 'faggot' tagged across his locker. "So, while you do that, Sam can gripe, and I'll be busy trying to be as invisible as possible throughout it all."

"Not that big of a problem with you." Tucker pointed out.

"Yeah." Danny sighed, even without ghost powers, being invisible never was a problem for him.

The silence that followed was broken with a very loud, very long yawn from Danny that made everybody take yet another look at him.

"You look like something the cat dragged in." Sam stated. Out of nowhere Grimalkin meowed an objection to the line from the bed causing Dash to tense and Tucker to snicker.

"That cat wouldn't bother to drag you in dude; you'd scare its apatite away for good."

"Guys, I'm fine I'm just tired." Danny said, turning away to look out the window beside his bed, it was very late afternoon, he could see the dark blue streaks hovering like black fog around the buildings in the distance. For a second he hoped, really hoped he would see some ghostly smudge sweep across the exposed sky, just to ease his mind and the tension fisting his spine.

He felt something grip his chin hard and turn his head and suddenly he was staring into the square face of Dash Baxter. Every tired, aching muscle in his body found the strength to tense.

It was creepy. Way creepy. Dash was not allowed to be this close to him unless he had one fist in his shirt and the other raised to strike. In fact, he was usually so busy cringing from the promise of pain he never registered just how Dash looked.

The stupid seventies jock hairstyle and the broad shoulders covered in a letter jacket had always been the traits best used for recognizing Dash, the thick black eyebrows automatically narrowing every time his glance landed on him, the blue eyes turning hard and cruel, the strong jaw clenching tightly in restrained irritation. That was what Danny imagined when he pictured Dash's face.

He had a light smattering of blackheads on his chin and what looked like the beginnings of a pimple above his right eye, he also had a few nose hairs that needed to be trimmed. He never noticed Dash's crooked nose before, what looked to have been broken several times, or the faint scar on his thin lips from having it split just a little too much. Just what kind of a beating did jocks go through?

"You look like shit." Danny started, scared for a second before he realized it was Dash who had spoken, not him.

Tucker glanced nervously at Sam, who was currently gripping her textbook a little too hard. He hoped throwing it at Dash once was enough for one night, but positioned himself for a quick escape just in case.

Luckily, Dash released Danny immediately after that, his head nodding down once, a firm jerk of a motion with a kind of finality that had Danny scooting back a few paces. "Get to bed." He said turning around and shoving stuff into his backpack. "Get to bed, get some sleep, and don't go to school tomorrow."

"Say what?" Danny exclaimed.

Dash slung his backpack, unzipped, over his shoulder and stared Danny down. "You look about ready to go ghost permanently." He said through narrowed eyes. "If you show up to school tomorrow I swear you will be spending it in the nurse's office for completely unrelated reasons."

"Dude, how do you know about going gho-" Dash silenced Tucker with a steely blue glare. He gripped the boy's arm harshly and started tugging him out.

"You too creepy." He growled to Sam.

"What do you think you`re-"

With a single sweep of his arm he managed to release Tucker and grab Sam, shoving her in front of him and knocking her into her friend, causing them both to stumble out of the room and hit the hallway wall.

Before either of them could even turn around to protest Dash was out himself, shutting the door behind him without even a backwards warning glance at Danny. He was absolutely certain Danny would follow his orders.

"What the hell was that about!" Sam screeched. All too willing to claw out Dash's organs and feed them to her vampire obsessed cohorts down at the local Goth club, but sadly Tucker was gripping her arm with a firm, well accustomed hold, fully aware of Sam's rages.

"You were the first to point out his state." Dash said coldly, turning in the direction opposite the stairs on the hallway. "I was just doing something about it."

"Threatening him is doing something?"

"Always worked for him before." Dash shrugged.

"You can't just order him around." Sam yelled. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Sleep, I'm tired too." Dash answered, "and as for ordering him around." He pinned her with a hard assessing glare. "Maybe people should start doing it more often."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that sometimes sitting back and letting him make the right choice isn't always best." He opened the guestroom door, where his packed cloths from the previous day, which he never did use because he went to his own home instead, still sat in a bag on the bed. "Sometimes you got to beat it into him, because he's too thick headed to see anything but what he deems important." Slinging his open pack up next to the sack, he faced them fully. "Sometimes you have to accept that he isn't some saint."

"I never said Danny was a saint." Sam snapped, not liking at all that she was being lectured on stuff she already knew. "And since when do you sleep here?"

"Since Friday night." Dash answered. "And you don't have to say anything, I can see it every time you two see him all fair-haired and wispy tailed. You worship the air he floats on more than any of those airhead fan girls ever could." He neglected to acknowledge that he was technically one of those fangirls…err boys. "You lecture him, gripe at him, and try and steer him in the right direction, or what you think is right, but at the same time you don't really care what decision he makes in the end. Even if he destroyed the earth you'd somehow rationalize that it was for the better because you know when it all comes down to it he'll make the right choice, because he's done it so many times before.." He arched and eyebrow. "Am I right?"

"Danny makes good decisions." Tucker said quietly. "Sometimes we have to pick at him to do it, but even when we don't things turn out okay. He's a lot different than he was when he first started out."

Sam nodded, crossing her arms and leaning back.

"So because nothing drastic has happened _yet_ because of his little choices you think he is automatically right?"

"No." Sam said. "Danny is actually wrong more often than he is right, but he looks at everything, weighs the consequences, and ultimately makes the right choice. He does not act on a whim, and though he can be selfish sometimes he never puts his own needs before that of others." _For long_, she added mentally, but she was not about to concede a single point to her blonde adversary.

"You need to stop and assess your own choices." Dash said, and shut the door firmly in their faces.

Sam and Tucker blinked at the wooden barrier for a brief moment before Sam let out a sharp cry and slammed her fist into it.

"Is there a problem?" They both turned to Maddie, standing at the top of the stairs worriedly.

"Yes, there is." Sam muttered, but tried to put on a smile. "Mrs. Fenton we would like to stay the night, could we?"

Maddie looked a bit uncertain, but brightened her voice when she answered, "Sure thing sweetie, but call your parents to get their okay. I know you kids think you're all grown, but you still need their permission."

Sam nodded and flipped out her cell phone. Tucker was busy staring at her as if she were crazy. "Did you say 'we'?"

"Shush." Sam said and waved him off.

"Well we'll certainly have a full house tonight. I'm sorry that we only have the spare bedroom upstairs available." said Maddie apologetically.

"That's okay; I'll take Jazz's room." Sam said, certain it wouldn't be a problem. She left a voicemail on her grandmother's phone, who would break the unfortunate news of her prolonged exposure with the Fentons to her parents. Tucker grudgingly took out his PDA and messaged his father at work.

"I like that room anyway." He said. "Thank you Miss Fenton." He nodded at her as he climbed the stairs to the Ops Center, humming something that sounded eerily like "MMMmm, technology."

"Good night." Sam said to Maddie deceptively sweet and headed off to Jazz's fluffy room. She shut the door unnecessarily hard but the woman just crossed it off as an aversion to the pink decorations. She headed back downstairs shaking her head with a smile on her face.

~*~*~

Nobody had even noticed he had opened his door a crack to hear their conversation. Well actually, he had opened it to yell at Dash to mind his own damn business, but quickly shut it a little bit when he heard a small snippet from their argument.

Truth be told he had always known of the change in Sam and Tucker's attitude towards him. Sure the first two years they griped and grumbled and generally did everything to order him around, then they just would stare at him in sadness and disappointment and somehow guilt him into doing what they wanted. Lately? Lately they seemed content to subtly hint at their displeasure and leave him to it.

It was mostly his fault after all. He did give the impression he automatically made the right decision. It wasn't as if he meant it to be that way, he really just didn't want his friends to think of the struggle he had to go through to do the right thing.

He never figured it would lead them to this road.

With footsteps as quiet as falling snow, he crept to Dash's door, knocking as loudly as he dared. When there was no answer, he glanced around and turned intangible. Slipping through the door with no effort at all.

Dash was laying out on the bed, ankles crossed and his head propped up on his arms staring at the ceiling. Danny swept over to the side of the bed before turning tangible again.

"Hey." He said softly, causing Dash to jerk and let out a girly yipe. "Hush." He said firmly and Dash bit his lip.

"You should be asleep." Dash hissed, totally not understanding why they had to whisper when the sun was still out.

"You should be cinders after daring to cross Sam." Danny jested. He let his weight settle on the mattress, leaning on one arm to hover over Dash, propped up on the pillows. "I heard what you guys said."

"Yeah, what of it? You gonna lecture me too?" Dash looked impudent, as though daring him to try.

"I figured it sounded like you were giving the lecture." He smirked, but it was so tired looking that it drooped at the edges and appeared like he was trying hard not to blink. "You surprised me; I didn't think you'd be so deep and analytic."

"Yeah well, despite years of trying I've yet to achieve the complete imbecile level of moronic," Dash mocked, facial muscles hardening into stern irritance. "I'm not as dumb as you people believe. You have no idea how difficult it is to memorize all those plays. Sometimes I'm so busy going over them in my head I don't even know what's going on around me, pretty much why I walk into such stupid pranks all the time." He sighed. "And yet our team isn't even good, I have to play all kinds of sports at the school just to make up for the lameness of each one."

"You're right you know." Danny said distractedly.

"Hey don't hurt yourself being all sympathetic." Dash snarled.

"No, not that." Danny amended. "About me."

Dash was confused. "What about you?'

"I suck at making good choices."

Dash sat up, following the train of thought quickly. "Hey, hey everybody makes bad moves sometimes." He consoled. "No need to hold that against yourself. I was just trying to get it through their head that you needed help." He cringed. Great, now Danny was going to blow up on him, after a few moments of nothing he chanced a peak out from his scrunched eyes. The brunet didn't even look like he had heard him.

Danny had closed his eyes with a pained look on his face "I'm going to tell you a secret." He said after another minute in silence. "A very big, very bad secret. He was still in that bathrobe, and Dash didn't have a clue if he had underwear on under it or not, but his pale legs peaked out of the fold as he crossed and recrossed them in discomfort.

"A little less than four years ago, during the CAT exams, I made a very big mistake, one that almost hurt a lot of people, that, on some strange unreachable level, did hurt a lot of people.

"During a ghost fight with someone that shouldn't even have existed, at least not then, I somehow ended up with the answer key to the test. Now I didn't steal it," he snapped hurriedly, "I wouldn't deliberately take something that important, at least I hope not, really I never even thought about it, or I think I didn't. Maybe later on I would have, I had some kind of fleeting idea during the assembly but I could never recall it when I try."

"You're not making any sense." Dash sat up.

"Don't interrupt me." Danny hushed. "I figured that if I got the answers without trying to get them than it must be fate. I must have been meant to have them, some kind of karmatic reward for all the good I'd done I guess.

"I decided I'd just cheat and get it done with. Perfect scores, perfect life right? I mean even my sister didn't get a perfect score, I would really be a genius, and that magazine would boast that they knew it all the time. My parents would be so proud and Lancer would be off my back and maybe even let me off with a few warnings instead of constant detentions.

"I didn't think that it would have such drastic consequences." He sighed heavily. "Actually these days I'm not even sure if any of it would have ever happened if Clockwork hadn't gotten involved, if maybe the test answers had never fallen into my hands through his influence maybe I'd just bomb the test and get on with it. But because of everyone's interferences, because of everybody trying to stop a future that may be bad, they created the bad future.

"It's a bit of a paradox. Clockwork had to stop me from turning evil, so he gave me the means of becoming evil, and by me stumbling upon my evil future I chose to escape that future, thus stopping everything he had originally started, making it so I didn't turn evil just like he wanted, but in reality I may have never even turned evil in the first place if he hadn't given me the chance to, even though he only did it to prevent me from turning evil."

"Ouch." Dash groaned. "Okay, idiot jock here. What do you mean by evil, Danny you are seriously sounding like you need to be knocked comatose until spring."

"This is hard, okay?** _I_** barely understand it all."

"Okay, I'll try to be patient."

"Good. Now through various circumstances that don't need to be mentioned Sam and Tucker and I wound up ten years in the future, a very depressing future."Danny shuddered as he related the crumbling buildings and the news from future Valerie that his parents and friends had died, it hadn't really registered yet, not until the graveyard, and so he simply focused on the fight at hand. The menacing entrance of his future self, and saving Valerie from what could have been her very _present_ demise. Then when everything finally set in, and he was tossed into the ghost zone to be knocked around by aging nemesis's until he could successfully get away.

He added in what he had picked up from his friends conversations, and left out some trivial details like Vlad being a half ghost.

"Sam and Tucker got away, and the next thing they knew they were getting details from someone who wasn't me. They never figured out what happened next, because from the time I was returned to and the reality they almost faced was wiped from their memories. Or maybe it simply never existed."

"But you saw it, you experienced it. How could it never exist?"

"I try not to think about it too much. I still don't know how they figured out The Nasty Burger was still going to blow. I guess even life has plot holes."

"I can't believe you actually went through something like that." Dash said, picking at a stray fiber on his jeans. "I don't think I'd be able to handle my whole family dying."

"I couldn't either." Danny struggled for a bit., then with a sigh continued his story. He told Dash of Vlad and his disturbing news, his explanations, winding it down to the eventual interference of ClockWork.

"The problem is," he said when he was through and Dash was staring down at the covers like they were made of gold. "I never really experienced that pain." He looked out at the rapidly darkening sky. "Clockwork's interference was possibly what originally started the evil future, but if that same interference halted it as well, what happened to the evil future that was supposed to come? What was the original cause of it, and could it still happen?"

"Danny, I don't think you'd-" Dash reached out but Danny jerked away.

"How do you know?" he asked. "I don't even know. I have absolutely no idea what was going through my mind when I wanted my soul ripped out. My human emotions would still be within me, I'd just be split in half. Did I blame my ghost half for everything, did I want it destroyed? What caused my ghost half to suddenly act so violently? Did he know he was going to be killed? Did he act in defense? And if it was Vlad and me both inside him, why did he only acknowledge me as his past? Wasn't it Vlad's ghost what overwhelmed him?" Danny was shaking, but like before, like always, he didn't cry.

"I just don't know. And that's why, why I have to be careful with my decisions. But I still slip up, still struggle. And that scares me. Because I'm so close to the edge and it's dark" he paused, "and I'm stumbling."

He suddenly found himself crushed against Dash, and he gasped. Or tried to, the arms around him were so hard and unyielding he couldn't get the air into him.

"You're not a bad person." Dash said hoarsely, and Danny felt something warm drop onto his temple.

Dash was crying?

That's not what he wanted. He only wanted Dash to know that it wasn't Sam and Tucker's fault. That he simply didn't want them to know, that he didn't want to burden them. "How do you know?" he found himself asking.

"Because you're just not. Your good and kind and you wouldn't hurt anybody, especially not your friends and family, just because of some long lost universe where you turned evil, your questioning yourself? Of course some alternate universe has an evil form of us, all of us, it's unbalanced otherwise. I bet there's a universe where I'm some absolute nerd and dating Manson and Lancer is the cutest teacher on campus and –"

"It almost happened again." Danny whispered into Dash's chest.

Dash pulled back. "What?" Hands gripping Danny's shoulders, trembling hands, big hands. Danny could feel the warmth of them through the thick fluffy robe.

"It almost happened…again." Danny's head lolled, the knowledge giving it a weight that even a superhero wouldn't be able to lift. "Sophomore year."

Dash's eyes widened perceptibly, but Danny wasn't looking. "How?" He gulped. "Why?"

"It's a long story…Longer that the other one, and…" Danny paused. "And a lot more painful."

Dash let his eyes droop. "We aren't going to get any sleep are we?" He said in mock laugh.

Danny smiled bitterly. "Not likely."

Dash gripped Danny under the chin and tilted his face up. "Spill." He breathed.

Danny just nodded.


	7. Remembrance

There are a great many things that could happen to a superhero once his secret identity is revealed to countless viewers, Danny had experienced a portion of it before, and the event was not exactly one of his most highlighted summer vacations, but this time around it appeared every possible horrible thing that could happen in real life or comic book fiction to an exposed hero, happened to him.

When all was said and fixed Clockwork had set a worn purple hand heavily on his shaking blood-soaked shoulder and advised him not to dwell upon it.

Truth be told it was probably best not to dwell on the majority of near death slash traumatizing events that he tended to narrowly escape several times a week. But dwell he did, it was after all difficult to take the advice of a wizened old ghost when two seconds later he was an infant once again, speaking to Clockwork was like speaking to the moon in fast forward, and this was what came of it. He should really start dwelling more on listening to advice given to him.

He began the story with an abridged version of the global devastation aversion that had forced his secret open; Dash had been there after all so going into specific details would not be needed, but not specifying the exact time his whole fucking world became the type of shit monkeys tended to throw around for sport wasn't the wisest way to spill your heart out to a previous nemesis. Even if said nemesis was a bigger fan boy than even "creepy" could adequately describe.

Filtering out typical teenage lingo, flippant and unnecessary hand gestures emphasizing dramatic events in the story, and idiot jock interruptions, the story went along the lines of this.

The day after the events had concluded, the removal of world saving devises for museums worldwide, electing a new mayor, constructing statues, erecting said statues, and of course romancing and flying off into the night with the witty, charming, beautiful, and totally canon romantic interest of the opposite gender, all completed and everything prepared to return to some false semblance of normal, Danny woke up to the sound of his alarm clock. It was hard to believe but even with his heroic deeds known to all, he still had to attend regular school.

The world had many, many evils to dispel.

He rose from bed after a long, enjoyable stretch, pulled back the curtains with an unnecessary flourish from his open window, and welcomed in the cool morning air, and the image of perhaps the largest mob outside his window since the entire student body had decided to attend his party while pirate ghosts commandeered their parents.

And the noise!

The cheers that rose up from the masses were deafening, and didn't even have the theatrical nicety to start slow and build up as people noticed him. As soon as he pulled the curtains back he was drowned in a wave of screaming and applause and general public affection that could make superstars feel like neglected children.

Danny shut the curtains quickly and just stood, staring at the thick fabric in shock.

What the hell?

Footsteps stomping across the hall, his sister didn't even knock or ask to come in or anything, just flung the door open and charged in. "Danny, have you looked outside?!"

Curtains still fisted in his hands he turned to give her an irate glare.

"What do you think is going on?" she asked, moving over to his window and peaking out as unnoticeably as possible.

"What do you think; I just blew my secret worldwide. They're all here for Danny Phantom." Danny groaned and kicked his dresser. "How the heck am I supposed to get to school with all those people mobbing around our house?"

Jazz gave him a casual, disbelieving look. "Why not go ghost?"

He blinked. Then hurried to get dressed and follow his sister down the stairs. He was loath to admit it, but sometimes his sister actually was smart.

He burst into the kitchen with a feeling of unfamiliarity. The morning routine that his family had established for the 14 years of his life was broken and in its place suddenly rested one only recently formed these past few days with continuous strings of conversation about ghosts and nauseating amounts of hugs and congratulations, and questions that Danny hoped would taper off after a time. Or become more natural, and at least somewhat comfortable.

If not, well he'd be off to college soon anyway.

Jazz seemed grateful for a reprieve in her role as her brother's defender against the harmful psychological effects of their parent's profession, and his secret from the harmful effects of their parents, and for once wasn't annoying or unbearable in the least. And he managed to escape the day's breakfast with only a small earful of his father's unneeded, and unhelpful, tips for ghost fighting and worrisome complaints of safety from his mother. Adding a little hope that this constant shooting of questions and advice would indeed fade.

Putting his dishes in the sink, he grabbed his book bag and blinked out, invisible, right in front of them. He heard his father give a sharp cry and his mother dropped a fork. He let a little childish giggle sneak past his lips as he fazed through the wall, but it wasn't loud enough for them to hear.

With that though he was out of the house and flew off dramatically with a warm accomplished feeling. Life right then…was kind of cool. Even the hoards of people under him, with their banners and signs and shouts, were to be expected

He had faced the fandom before, and was certain the novelty of him being ghost would wear off soon. If it didn't, he'd simply figure a way to get bodyguards or something.

It didn't take long at all for him to arrive at school and find that it, like his house, was surrounded by people and news crews. The people here, however, weren't all holding 'heart' signs, in fact they ranged from 'God hates you' and 'the prophet has come' to weird 'the end has come' and 'aliens exist'. He decided to wait until he had fazed through to the safety of the school before turning visible, tangible, and human all in a flash of white rings.

In plain sight…

It took some effort to push away the nagging instinct of hiding behind the nearest solid object to transform in privacy, but he was determined to ditch the habit, he was 'out' now, after all. No need to hide.

A group of students halted in the hallways upon seeing him there to stare in wonder and amazement at him, suddenly appearing in their path.

Danny blinked, and tensed, feeling a bit of sweat bead between his shoulder blades as his spine firmed to a straight rod. He gulped, seeing the strange, conflicted look on the teens' faces. They were all girls, Freshmen girls. Shit.

Wait for it…

"Oh my god! It's _**Danny Phantom**_!" was screeched and the girls suddenly broke into a rushing stampede of five.

Startled, even though he had been expecting it, Danny blipped off into intangibility right before they plowed into him, then turned back just as the girls ended up in a pile of the floor.

"Wwwwowowowow." One grumbled. "owwww, get your knee off my tummy!"

Danny peaked out from his crossed arms, held up against his face in an attempt to block them when they rammed into him, and turned to them. "Wha…" he began in a stammer "What was that?! You could have plowed me right over." He tried to glare down at them but with his eyebrows glued to his hairline he managed something more along the lines of wild eyed astonishment.

"You, you're Danny Phantom!" the girl on the bottom of the pile, who's upper half had managed to avoid being squished beneath bodies, gushed.

That got the barely teenage bodies squirming again and in a few seconds all the girls were untangled and gawking at him.

You rock so much! We love you! Do you have a girlfriend? Does it feel weird when you disappear? What's it like to fly do you really posses people can you really reach inside anything do you wanna go out can CAN I HAVE YOUR BABIES?!

He stepped back from the new wave of vocalizations assaulting him and put his hands up in some feeble attempt to keep the small group at arm's length. He tried to smile, but a twitch had developed under his right eye, tugging the muscle up into a skewed sort of disbelieving shock, and with his brows taking residence in the shelter of his bangs he was certain every facial expression would be forced into such a comical molding.

"Um, I really need to, you see I have a, eh, I gotta go and…"

A locker shut firm and hard, the loud metal clang resounding through the near empty hallway making him cringe, unhinging his eyebrows and bringing them straight down into his eyes in the reflex. All of them turned to look behind him, towards the cause of the clang.

Dash stood, looming, in front of the wall of lockers, big meaty palm pressed flat against his little door and a very irritated look on his face as he returned their stare. The girls surrounding Danny fidgeted and inched back just a little.

"Shoo" came a voice from behind and Danny whirred around to see Star and Paulina standing at the back of the little group, glaring at the girls. Everyone was still a moment. Some of the teens had faces a bit twisted, as if they were seriously considering a refusal.

"She said beat it." Dash's heavy footsteps were accompanied by two other sets directly behind Danny, and he found himself stuck between the two groups, wide eyes glancing back and forth a bit panicked. What the hell was about to happen?

The arrival of the two other jocks with Dash got the girls sidestepping everyone and hurrying on to whatever destination they had been heading for before Danny had appeared in front of them, leaving Danny sandwiched between the hierarchies of the school.

"Uh…." Danny began, nodding to the newcomers. "Hi Dash, Paulina, Star, and um…you two" He tried a smile at the other two. They were sophomores Danny could see, but not anywhere near as burly as Dash had been at that age. They briefly met his eyes then glanced away, their skin looking a little glossy.

"Hey Danny," Paulina oozed, "sorry about those little girls, freshmen you know?" She latched onto his arm brutally and batted those lashes of hers up at him while Star locked onto his other arm, gaze averted.

"Um, yeah I..know." he managed, trying to wriggle out of their grip. "Um could you maybe-"

"Would you like to join us for breakfast?" Paulina lunged. "We'll pay, completely; they usually have really great fresh doughnuts in the cafeteria."

"Er, actually I'm supposed to meet up with Sam and Tuck." He tried to explain with a nervous smile. "In the principal's office, you see. Lancer wanted to talk to us and… well Sam wouldn't take kindly to my ditching her." He gave up and just phased out of their grasps, causing them to stumble a fraction due to the sudden loss of contact. "Girlfriends you know?" he turned to where he had all five of them to his front, backing up as he added the last bit.

Paulina's flirty eyes darkened just a bit, her back straightening, tossing her hair over her shoulder, she huffed. "Can't say I do, never had one."

Dash for his part looked just as fierce and foreboding as he did two minutes ago as he stared down some passerby's who dawdled a little too long to watch the outcome of the fangirl mob. Danny's smile faltered some when those eyes flicked over him, and the flash of memory of a Dash Baxter and the popular crowd helping him that summer when his secret was blown started crumbling little by little.

"Eh, that is so right," he stated. "So, um, I had better be getting off to meet them then. See you around." He waved and sank through the floor.

He only traveled a little ways before coming back up around a corner in the hallway, this time making sure no one was around to stampede him before changing back. He peaked around and saw Paulina and Dash in what looked like an argument. Deciding it wasn't worth listening too he started down the hallway in the direction of the Principal's Office, where Sam, Tucker, Mr. Lancer, and the principal would be waiting for him to discuss his current "extracurricular activities."

He gripped the handle of the door, a little stirring of emotion in his stomach. So far everything had been, on some level, predictable. The crowds, the fans, his parents, even Paulina and Dash. But he didn't quite know..what to expect here at school from the faculty.

Unlike his family and Dash and Paulina and a few others, he hadn't met Lancer and Principal Ishiyama when his secret was blown before, and as such didn't know exactly how the two would handle his sudden metaphysical lifestyle.

With a deep breath he tugged on the heavy metal door and stepped into the secretary's office, placing as sweet a smile as he could dig up in his nervous state on his face and praying the tight lines of his clenched jaw wouldn't twist it horribly.

"Mr. Fenton," The secretary cried, jumping up from her chair and knocking a few trinkets off her cluttered desk. "Oh my." She lunged and clutched at the toppled items, giggling nervously. Danny felt his polite smile twitch.

"Let me help." He said, and began picking pens up off the floor.

"Oh yes , er no! I mean no, thank you but they're," she kneeled down and hurriedly started gathering pens and pencils and papers and crushed them to her chest in piles, "they're waiting for you in there Mr. Phantom." She hiccupped. "Ah, I mean um. The principal is expecting you Mr. Fenton, they're, um, they're in the office." She straightened, and dumped the mess back onto her desk, hurrying to burry herself in the task of rearranging the clutter.

Danny stood and nodded, the strange little quivering in his stomach increasing at this bizarre interaction, he was eager to leave the little room, and headed into the principal's actual office. He opened the door hesitantly, peaking inside the well-lit room. "Um, hey." He said as way of announcing his arrival.

"Ah, Mr. Fenton, come in." Mr. Lancer urged in his usual tone, a combination of patience and pleasure. As though he had all the time in the world for that one person, and the time meant everything to him.

Coming all the way into the room he looked around. The blinds in the office were pulled all the way up, letting in the bright light of the rising sun. Everyone he was told would be there was, Sam, Tucker, Lancer and the principal, and him of course. He was, naturally, the last one to arrive.

Sam flashed an uncharacteristically bright smile at him the moment he came through the door, then instantly blushed and forced her lips into a non-morning person scowl. Crossing her arms. Tucker didn't try and hide his smile, and tipped his new gigantic topper comically. Danny rolled his eyes, feeling he had already exhausted every corny joke he could about the hat. Sam had merely stated that she was pleased it wasn't beaver fur.

Ishiyama looked tense behind her desk. With the office as bright as could be, it seemed she was trying to dispel her fears, as if her student would suddenly attack her. Her smile looked like Danny was afraid his would look earlier, tense and hard and just the slightest bit creepy, it wasn't at all the peppy statuesque woman he had come to know.

Mr. Lancer wasn't exactly what he had expected either.

As their conversations progressed, explanations, rule and restrictions, and the subject of his release from classes during a ghost attack, Lancer didn't seem to change at all from his former self. It seemed as if, on some level, Danny wasn't at all different from before.

"And you understand, Mr. Fenton, that with these new freedoms comes new restrictions. No more breaking and entering, we will be requiring you to submit to certain regulations to prevent cheating and the harm of students, and of course you will not be allowed to join or participate in any events where your skills would give you an unfair advantage, this includes Sports." With that Lancer laid the stack of paper down in front of Danny and gave him a pen. "Your powers are seen as a dangerous weapon, and as our district's policy on arms in public schools is strict and unforgiving, you will have to excuse these precautions as…necessary."

Danny answered that yes, he did understand, and signed the agreement, which Lancer then took, detached a layer of the final pages, and handed back to Danny.

"Have your parents read over and sign as well. Then return the other paper to me, you can keep that copy of the agreement for your own reference, we have another." Ishiyama said tensely, hurried to get them out of her office.

"As long as you understand," Tucker stated, "that should the city believe Danny is being unfairly prosecuted for alleged deeds with no proof of him doing them, appropriate actions will be taken." Sam nodded.

"All allegations must be backed by evidence." She agreed. "Danny's abilities mark him as a minority under the law, and unfair judgment based on these powers of his would be treated as if they were acted against someone of a different religion, race, or orientation."

Principal Ishiyama said she understood, and that she had already gone over this with the district administrator and that if their lawyers would look over the papers they would find it acceptable.

She said 'lawyers' as if these students of hers were not children, but enemies of the school. Enemies of hers. It appeared that, due to this new flood of information, they had lost favor with some of the population.

But, Danny concluded as they walked out of the office, that was to be expected.

-

"Mr. Fenton, please pay attention," Mr. Falluca tapped the caped board-marker on the desk Danny was sitting at, successfully taking his attention away from the note just past to him, "to the lesson at hand and not to your fanmail."

The crinkled fold of paper was then confiscated and, much to Danny's dismay, read aloud to the class.

Then the bell rang and he bolted from the class, sailing out the door before the math teacher could further humiliate him. He had never, ever had a letter read to the class before. It was mortifying, mainly because it had been from Paulina, a very gushy note from Paulina.

That peppy voice called to him from the crowd. "Hey! Danny!" Paulina rushed up behind him. "I'm sooo sorry, Mr. Falluca usually doesn't read notes aloud, that was really weird." She said all chipper. "I think he's targeting you cuz he like, doesn't like ghosts you know?"

It was true, Falluca was well known for his fear of ghosts, but he had always shown a scientific interest in them at the least. Danny had been sure he'd face some well-worded questions from him in that class. Instead, he was targeted countless times throughout the period to answer difficult questions he hadn't had the time to study for. And Lancer too, had been unreasonably cruel to him in class. And Tetslaff in gym. It was like all the teachers were ganging up on him.

"They just don't want to treat me different from others." He concluded out loud, shaking Paulina's grip off him none too nicely. It was true, he assured himself, they just didn't want to seem like they were playing favorites with the superhero. He was already a walking safety hazard on campus, best not give people more reasons to bring his name up at the next PTA meeting.

"Well, that's stupid." Her grasp on his arm persisted through the attempted dislodging. "They make exceptions for the rest of us A-Listers all the time." She pouted. "And you're like the most popular kid in the world right now. You should get extra special treatment.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and finally just pushed her off him, trying not to retort that he was getting extra special treatment. The kind of treatment ex-cons got when they toured the white house.

"Danny!" he broke into a smile upon seeing Sam in all her darkness within the crowd. She spotted Paulina trying to cling to him and, in what could only be called a stroke of jealous madness, walked right up and kissed him full on the mouth. "I'm been waiting for you, let's go to lunch."

He casually waved a fuming Paulina bye while lacing his fingers with his girlfriend's; they marched off to make full use of their lunch passes.

"Hey! Hey wait up you two!" She called after the couple. Paulina charged after them. "Hey, let's make it a group outing!" She latched onto Sam's arm this time, smiling down at the shorter girl. At the glare she received, she went for begging, and pouted her lips. "Please? I'm very sorry for how we treated you all before. Give us a chance to make it up? We'll pay for lunch, and we all can just sit and talk."

The three were soon joined by Tucker, Star, Kwan, and Ashley.

"Where are we heading to?" Star asked.

"The Nasty Burger of course." Tucker answered before Sam could say anything.

"There'll sure to be a billion people in there, are you sure we should?" Danny asked nervously.

"Come on Fenton, you're like a celebrity now, bask in it." Kwan smacked him on the back.

"Who said any of you were coming?" Sam snapped. "What if we were going on a date?"

"At the Nasty Burger?" Star blanched. "That's no place for a date."

"No, not the Nasty Burger, maybe we wanted to go to a café or a sit in restaurant." She shouted at the blonde. "We don't want people tagging along."

"Sam, come on, be nice." Danny soothed. "They're just trying to—"

"To be your friends right Danny?" She cut him off. "Or really, to be Danny Phantom's friends, I'm so sick of these jerks only coming to you when you have something they want. That's just what these leeches do!"

"Well yeah." Ashley said sweetly. "But that doesn't mean we're all bad. Maybe we might be your friends for real later on."

Sam glared at her, but was saved from answering when Kwan called out. "DASH!" They all turned to see the jock look up at them.

"Yo man, we're going to the Nasty Burger, come on!"

"We're not going to the Nasty Burger!" Sam shouted, but was hushed by her boyfriend and ignored by the rest.

Dash stopped and let the group come to him, looking over them all with a sour face. "All of you?" he asked, his eyes landing on Danny.

"Yup, we're gonna have some overdue bonding time." Paulina oozed. "We'll be best friends in no time. She smiled and touched cheeks with Sam. Star's face darkened and Sam got even more furious at this.

Dash locked eyes with Danny and grimaced. His fists clenching. "I'll pass." He ground out and stomped off.

"HEY!" Kwan called but Danny, disturbed, held him back. "Fen…"

"Let me talk to him, kay?" Danny said, and received strange looks. "I…I want to, please?"

Sam released him and he walked after the blonde. He could hear Sam and Paulina start screeching at each other again, but his mind was fully focused on Dash.

"Dash!" he slammed into the boys restroom right behind the jock. "What's your deal? What was that about?" he didn't mind his tone, something he realized he really should have been careful of, and was soon lifted a foot off the ground and shoved against the wall, fist hovering in his face.

"What the hell did you say?" Dash snarled.

Danny's eyes glowed dangerously. "Put me down." He said slowly, "I don't have to hold back anymore Baxter."

Dash's eyes widened, and, as if he didn't quite realize what he had been about to do, dropped Danny and backed away, holding his fist to his chest.

"Sorry." He mumbled, head down, "sorry. I…I forgot…for a second.."

Danny gave him a confused look, wondering how the hell someone could forget such a thing, and planted himself right in front of the bigger teen. "You know, I kind of expected a warmer reception from you." His behavior was so out of sync with everything Danny had learned up to that point. In fact, Dash had been the only person who's reaction he had been sure of when worried about the future.

Dash, his big stupid fan boy, was avoiding him. Why? He should be smothering him with offers of friendship like Paulina and Kwan were, not running off to pout.

"Why's that Fenton?" Dash tried to snap, it was a weak attempt. He was uneasy.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because you practically lick the ground I walk on." Danny stated.

"What the hell gave you that idea? Don't I beat you up daily?" There he was, fisting his hero's shirt again. It was a habit he needed to break.

"True, I guess I should say you lick the ground Danny Phantom walks on, but we both know it doesn't matter what name I go by anymore." Danny pushed Dash away with a bit more force than necessary. "What's your problem? You didn't have all this conflicted crap the last time you found out about me." Danny stated.

"What? What last time?" he glared. Danny looked startled and bit his lip; he hadn't meant to let that slip. "You mean I've known about this before? What the hell did you do to me?"

"Yeah, you found out before, so what? I can change things." He snapped his fingers. "Like that, I have ghost powers remember, and you helped me out and you were pretty happy to do it. And I was considered a wanted fugitive of the government then, now I'm an international hero, and you act like I'm scum. So I'll ask you again, what's the deal?"

Dash stared at him, his arms trembling from clenching his fists so tightly. That voice, Danny's voice had spoken like that to him, down at him, scolding him, several times before and he had accepted it because he was his hero. But from those lips, from Danny Fenton's lips, he couldn't allow it. But he didn't have a choice. "It's nothing." He replied, gritting his teeth. "I'm just, I don't feel well today and all this is giving me a headache."

Danny arched an eyebrow at him, daring him to come up with a better answer, but when it was clear none was forthcoming, he sighed and accepted it. "Then," he spoke finally, "You shouldn't have a problem with eating out with us." He latched onto Dash's arm the same way Paulina had latched onto his before, his hands gripping a bit firmer though, showing off his strength to the jock to put a bit more force behind the 'invitation'.

He couldn't afford to alienate Dash at this time. There were still threats he had to deal with, the Guys in White, the fans, his enemies, and whatever other unforeseen complications that might come up. He needed allies to go along with this exposure, and Dash and his friends were irreplaceable assets.

"Yeah." Dash agreed after a time, "Yeah I guess I'll join." Danny smiled at the defeat, leading the jock by his arm out of the bathroom and towards the group still waiting for them. Whatever problems the big dope was having with this experience, they'll just have to work through.

As Danny and Dash passed by the counselor's office, they overheard two girls walking out.

"Mr. Showenhower isn't like any of the councilors' I've seen in the movies. He doesn't just sit there and nod while you cry." One girl said excitedly.

"Yeah, he actually talks to you, and helps you, its way better than just sitting there creepily, nodding like some idiot and scribbling on a pad."

"I'm going to see him again tomorrow, he's so cute, and I don't mind talking about my mom with him."

Dash slowed his step and watched them pass, his fingers curling into his palm.

"Dash?" Danny glanced up. "We're going to be late and not have enough time to eat, the girls will kill us." He said sweetly.

"Yeah, yeah lets go." He hurried his pace.

'_Show__enhower.'_ Danny thought to himself. '_Showenhower, why does that sound so familiar?'_

A/N:

I wanted to have this chapter done before I posted it, but as the anniversary is past, and I promised multitudes of you that I would have it up by then and I failed, I am posting less than half the flashback story, but… here's a sneak peek into the future.

…_.._

_Danny stared wide eyed at the bulky figures, almost trembling beneath the thin sheets of the nurse's office bed. The first three moved in, scrambling around the room in quick, controlled steps and checking everything from the windows and vents to beneath the beds and even unplugging the phone. _

_When that was done they nodded to each other, then turned to nod to the other two still in the doorway, then moved to stand on either side of his bed, their large, shiny weapons ready in their hands._

_Principal Ishiyama looked positively furious, but held her tongue as the agents did their job. Lancer, however, was far from quiet. He could be heard just outside, speaking with whomever it was that had come with the goons._

"_Um.." Danny began, sitting up with some difficulty. "So, what brings you guys here." He asked._

_He recognized the two on either side of him as the ones always after him; though the one at the foot of the bed was unfamiliar, he was probably at the same rank. None of them answered right away, then the darker of the two spoke hushed, as if he wasn't supposed to say anything._

"_We're here to get you out." He explained. "The government has deemed your presence here too dangerous."_

"_Wah?" Danny jolted, ready to screech in his defense, but a firm hand pushed him back to the bed, he shot a glance at the second agent, expecting a gun in his face for his sudden movements. Instead he saw a strange concerned expression. _

"_This limited environment has too many openings, too easy for you to be attacked." He elaborated, then shooting a glare at the principal, "and not just from ghosts."_

_Danny's head felt smothered. He griped his brow with one hand as he tried to process this new development. The Guys In White, here, at his school, helping him? And Dash, was Dash okay? Was he hurt, what did Showenhower want with an ordinary human teenager? _

"_We'll get Showenhower." The three agents said in unison, then looked at each other. Danny didn't know if he had asked the question out loud, or if maybe all four of them were perhaps thinking along the same lines, but the roaring sound, coming from just beneath his ears, was swooping in fast and his eyes were watering from the strain of watching them. _

"_Your little friend is going to be fine." The unfamiliar one assured, patting his foot._

"_He's not my…eah." And he was back in the darkness._

….

I hope you enjoyed the peek.

Also, thanks for all the "Happy Anniversary Photo Opportunities" e-mails. You guys rock. Another year goes by, another excuse I have to give myself for why exactly it's not done yet. But then, that's okay, Rivals in Love is over five years old.

God it's a good thing most of my works are One-shots huh?

Someone TALK TO ME! I'm bored…. and inspiration does not visit the lonely idle hermit. Even an egotistical one like me.

I got a new Rin sign for my birthday :D

-Rin


	8. Bittersweet Surprises

The Nasty Burger was crowded with hungry protesters and heart-sign wielders talking amiably amongst themselves about the pros and cons of a ghostly superhero.

It was also crowded with protesters and sign wielders talking not so nicely with each other.

And when Danny's little group made the drastic mistake of marching right through those doors and into the fray, they were immediately noticed and swarmed upon. Amidst the shouted requests for autographs, questions about his powers, and angry condemning cries, Danny not thinking, grabbed Kwan's arm and hid behind him, causing the larger boy to startle and accidentally whip his arm out in front of him to regain balance, knocking a soda off a tray and splattering it across several people and signs and within seconds there were shouts and movements and Danny had to scramble to grab Sam, who was still attached to Paulina, Ashley, and the scowling Star, and phase out of the building before things got physical.

Latched to Kwan, with the chain of girls on his other arm, Danny settled all of them on the roof with a wide-eyed, breathless expression. Dash and Tucker were still inside, but they were at the back of the group and had barely gotten through the doors before Danny had to make his getaway. He saw them leave quickly and, careful not to be noticed, told Sam to call them to meet by the dumpster out back.

"This is absolutely ridiculous." Ashley said irritably, clutching at Paulina's hand as Danny dropped them on solid ground, as a solid themselves thankfully. She flung the hand away once she had good footing and stomped off. Danny never really knew her well, so he didn't feel bad about her unfavorable rock star experience, but the pout on Kwan's face said she was probably one of his short-term relationships. Dude could not keep a girl.

"Good riddance." Sam muttered, then turned to her Hispanic leech. "Don't suppose you'd be joining her?" she asked through half of her mouth. Paulina just blinked at her, the corners of her friendly smile hardening just slightly.

_(Ashley is the name of a minor character in the series like Mikey and Lester)_

_-_

"I suppose bag lunching it on the roof of the school wasn't so bad." Star said as they all walked back to their classes.

"Are you kidding me, that was wicked cool. I've never been on the roof before. Awesome!" Kwan swatted Danny's shoulder. "Dude lets lunch there again tomorrow."

Danny chuckled nervously, but agreed. Sam and Paulina were up ahead talking together, what looked like a heated argument, albeit a hushed one, and Tucker was fiddling with his PDA, effectively ignoring the world. Dash was standing on the other side of Kwan, obviously refusing to get anywhere closer than a single person's distance away from him. He had said very little over lunch, but since the other members of the group had talked enough amongst themselves to fill the silence of a graveyard; it had gone unnoticed by everyone but Danny.

Perhaps if they did do lunch again tomorrow, he'd open up more. Maybe all he needed was, as he said, a little time to settle in.

Danny rather needed that himself.

_-_

The next morning Danny had found the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale. His parents had hired security after a large brick with the word DEMON had been thrown through their living room window, he met them when he returned home, and they seemed to keep everything passive, simultaneously preserving the right to peaceful protest and the right to privacy.

Three of them asked for his autograph, one of them specifying that they wanted Fenton, not Phantom. Danny smiled at that, and at their request to drive him to school. To "prevent harassment from helicopters" they explained. So he allowed himself to be led out the back door and around to a large black SUV that had probably never seen a dirt road, much less driven down it. He answered the questions the three had about him and his powers to the best of his ability, and as they escorted him through another mob outside the school, also diminishing, he was handed a tiny silver Pantech c300, charger, and spare battery and informed that they would be there after school to pick him up.

Apparently, if he was going to leave to fight ghosts or, they added with almost identical smiles, any other reason, he was to call them and let them know so they didn't break into the school to track him down. Danny accepted it with a semi-grateful smile, shoved it in his pocket, then headed off to class.

The halls weren't crowded, Danny was supposed to come to school from now on a few minutes after the bell rang to avoid the rally of students no doubt waiting for him. So aside from a few hall monitors, a custodian, and two sophomore potheads coming out of a smoky bathroom, he had no one to bother him.

He smiled a little to himself as he headed up the stairs. Things weren't really so bad, a little annoying, and maybe just a tad bit stressful, but if the dissolving crowd outside was any indication, in a week or so, things may just be back to normal.

Well, not _normal_ normal, but at the very least not Rock Star Jesus famous anymore.

He couldn't help but grin at that thought, 'rock star Jesus, seriously.' He shook his head and turned a corner at the second floor.

And heard voices.

He stopped, not so much ducking back around the turn, but certainly not going forward. There were two people talking in the hallway, he didn't recognize the back of the one nearest him, he was dressed in a really ugly dark blue suit-jacket and black slacks so he assumed he was either a teacher, or someone else trying to look professional while shopping in the bargain bin. It almost matched, if you tossed the pants in the washer with a few drops of bleach.

Ugly mismatched suit or not, he was tall, with short black hair and shoulders so broad Danny couldn't see but a fourth of the hallway around him, certainly couldn't see who he was talking to. He was leaning back as he stood, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, and one cuff of his slacks had bunched up and tucked itself into the heal of a shiny black shoe.

"Mr. Showenhower, while I appreciate someone of your high standing and prominence being willing enough to deal with the day-to-day angst and drama of high school students, I'm afraid I have to protest your methods in which to counsel."

Danny finally let the conversation drifted into his ears, the voice belonged to Principal Ishiyama, and it seemed she was having some problems with the new councilor.

"I honestly don't see what the problem is here, Miss Ishiyama, the children come to me with their problems, I explain them, help them, and send them on their way, back to your teachers and classrooms, feeling relieved and focused."

"The delicate problems of teenagers cannot simply be explained away with textbook definitions and analytical phrases Mr. Showenhower."

"The anxiety of the hormonal youth, especially in the seemingly tyrannical environment of public schools, is never something that any textbook could adequately describe, Principal." He said Principal with the strange, perfect pronunciation of someone not entirely familiar with the language. Carefully weighing the words on their tongue to make sure they felt right in the sentence, and wasn't being used inappropriately. "I understand you believe that I should sit there and listen to them cry and rant and gabber, but that's not what they want." He kept his hands behind his back the entire time, but Danny had the distinct impression that he was jutting a finger right into Principal Ishiyama's large chest. "If they just wanted an ear, they'd go online and blog. What they need from a school councilor, from anyone they share their problems with, is an answer to their questions. Why do they feel like this, what could they do to make it stop, do they want to make it stop."

"They need to know their problems cannot simply be treated like some illness and disappear." The principal interrupted and Showenhower shifted just slightly, moving his weight from one foot to the other, just enough so that Danny could see her. "What will they do after high school, after college, when they find there isn't some psychological Band-Aid they can have prescribed by their resident shrink?" She chopped one hand down onto a flat palm. "They need to learn discipline, both physical and mental, in order to overcome the problems they face, and they can't do that if every time they reach a wall they have to scale, you show them how to shy from it until someone tosses down a tether."

Danny saw the back of Mr. Showenhower's shoulders rise and then settle back in their place as he let out a sigh. "Principal" he said, this time in a chastising tone. "Do not mistake my advice as some harness with which to haul them up over their problems. Instead, visualize a jackhammer, one they can use to dig their way through it."

Ishiyama looked like she would have said more, but her eyes caught Danny's and her spine stiffened. Danny, careful not to let his face show the 'caught in the cookie jar' expression his subconscious was now wearing, stepped forward as if he had only just paused in surprise at the corner.

"Good morning Principal Ishiyama." He said in what he hoped was his usual voice. He had very rarely talked with her unless he was in trouble.

Showenhower turned and Danny finally saw his face. It was pale, whiter even then his own and he didn't think people came any whiter than him and his family. Surprise flashed through him, that little tinkling bell of familiarity started chiming in the back of his mind, but he couldn't place where he might have seen him.

"Good morning Danny." The principal cooed in her high pitched sugar-rush voice. Something in the tone, however, suggested it was forced. That, and how she quickly turned to Showenhower and excused herself. "I have some work to be doing, we'll continue our little chat later Mr. Showenhower. Now don't forget my suggestions."

Danny watched her walk hurriedly down the hallway, her sensible shoes clacking against the linoleum as she descended the stairs.

"Mr. Fenton." A rich voice pulled his attention away from the high-strung woman. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure." He held out a large pale hand and Danny stared at it.

"No, we haven't," he said before gripping the man's hand and pumping it twice. His hold was firm, authoritative, but didn't invite a challenged of strength like some teacher's did. Maybe because he didn't want his hand broken by the town's superhero? Whatever, Danny purposefully kept his hand limp. The annoying buzz in his head telling him he should know this man was starting to frustrate him, and when he was frustrated, he was suspicious.

"I'm Alfred, Alfred Showenhower." He waited, either for Danny to introduce himself, which was stupid since he had already called him Mr. Fenton, or he was waiting to see if the student recognized his name. Considering Ishiyama had said he was a prominent psychologist, he figured the later, but he introduced himself anyway.

"Danny," was all he said in reply.

"Danny," Mr. Showenhower repeated, then spoke again. "Danny, to tell the truth I had believed you would be one of my most frequent visitors when I had first come on here almost a month ago." He obviously figured he now had permission to call him by first name. If one of his other teachers, like Mr. Lancer, had done it he would have figured it meant they were talking on a level of equality and familiarity, coming from a school shrink he just met, it felt dumb.

"Yeah, they've tried to send me to a bunch of ya." He said, letting the irritation seep into his voice. If this guy thought he'd spill to him about fighting ghosts and family matters, he'd have a serious disappointment. The last thing he wanted was an earful of psychobabble analyzing and explaining away his every action.

"Oh, no doubt, but that was before anybody new you're career." Danny felt like snorting at the label, but restrained himself. "I honestly don't imagine you'll be needing any kind of counsel, and I hope you don't end up being sent by some arrogant teacher." He patted Danny's shoulder and started moving away. "But feel free to stop by and talk sometime, and tell your sister I enjoyed her Thesis paper."

He walked away, hands in his ugly jacket pockets.

"Okay, filing that under things that creep me." Danny muttered, then he remembered the time and swore, turning to sprint down the hallway in the direction of his class.

-

The windows of his third period shook, distracting several students from their assignment, then Danny's cell phone and ghost sense went off at the same time.

Eyes stared at him as, in the middle of class he flipped open his phone and transformed, flying out through the roof, barely able to make out his mother's voice amongst the cheering students.

Several yards above the school he scanned his surroundings, listening to his mother rattle about a ghost sighting in the area around the school. Considering his ghost sense was still a point blank security alarm he was more than certain she was right.

He flipped the phone closed and flew a corkscrew around Casper High's main building, ignoring the roar from the camping protesters out front at the sight.

"Hey dipstick!" Ember shouted, and he turned just in time to see gloved fingers strumming a cord on her guitar. Sound waves tinted acidic pink made ripples through the air, slamming into him with the force of a semi truck driven by a zombified drunk driver. Danny flew backward into an apartment building across the street, concrete and plaster crunching beneath him.

"Oh my god!" he heard and he squinted out through watering eyes at the blurry upside down world. Oh wait, no it was just he who was upside-down. "Its Ember!" he looked up, or down really, to see Dash and Kwan among several other looky-loos too stupid to fight the elementary school impulse to watch fights.

It was a ghost fight, and yet students were pouring out of the building and running towards him, rather than away.

At least Ember looked like she wanted them around here as much as he did. "Fans." She rolled her eyes and sent a grin his way when he finally managed to peel himself from the side of the apartment. He somehow dodged her next attack, keeping himself separated from his imprint in the concrete, and using a zigzag motion zoomed at her, fist glowing bright green.

She dodged, putting as much distance between them as possible. Ember knew she didn't stand much chance in a close quarters brawl. She was a distance fighter, her guitar's sound waves strongest at several yards away.

There were chants now, of both their names, and while Ember looked incredibly pleased by this, and her hair was starting to lengthen, Danny's mood just got worse and worse. You would think it was a vs. comic; Ember vs. Danny Phantom, make your bets.

He crossed his arms out in front of him just in time for a rather strong note, but instead of a flat shield to protect him, he tried something new. He focused, and curved his energy into a circular shape. The sound waves hit him, and sent him back a ways through the air and into a streetlight, tilting the wood to the side and causing a bird to immediately evacuate. Ember, however, had it worse.

The shield had acted like a sound dome, focusing the waves back at her in a wider range. She was knocked to the ground, cracking the concrete and sliding some yards, ending up in a cluster of trash bins set out on the curb to be collected.

Danny hit the ground with a thud, but also some satisfaction at seeing Ember covered in gooey coffee grounds and a half eaten peanut butter covered slice of bread sticking to her cheek.

He stood, patted his thighs to be rid of invisible dust, and kicked off; flying at her while she was still getting up from the refuse.

She saw him, and jumped, he flew through where she had been kneeling and managed to get his feet under him and skid to a stop before he landed in traffic. Not that there was any traffic, seeing as people had stopped their cars in the middle of the road to watch the fight. So really, he stopped himself from slamming face first into a minivan.

Kwan and Dash were standing on that street corner, watching Ember hover in the air, not even noticing Danny was standing right beside them. Everyone else had had the good sense to scatter when they saw him flying in the direction, and were now on the other side of the intersection.

"We Love You Emb-!" Danny smacked a hand over their mouths so fast one could hear the connection.

"In case you two HAVENT noticed, Ember is a ghost who's trying to destroy the town, and who happens to gain power from the SHOUTING of her NAME!" He spat at them. "So it would be very, very helpful if you two would SHUT UP!"

Dash scowled, his face twisting into an expression Danny well recognized, he was pissed, Kwan just looked startled, he imagined it was because the jock had been so engrossed in his fanboy-ish behavior Danny appeared to have cropped up out of nothing. Which, in this town wasn't completely inconceivable.

He removed his hands and while Kwan remained silent, a trickle of sweat dribbling down from his hairline, Dash couldn't wait to take a deep breath, open his mouth, and scream:

"Ember! Ember!! EMB—"

Danny grabbed Kwan's hand this time and shoved it across Dash's mouth, but the muffled shouts continued. Dash's fists clenched at his sides.

Danny glared at Kwan, "Keep it there." And then ducked just as Ember slammed down her Guitar in a sword-like fashion, sparking little flickers of pink against the concrete Danny had just been standing on, and making the two boys back up a couple of steps.

Danny flew off, Ember chasing, until they were so far away from the crowd that all that could be seen were stick-like shadows and shoots of pink and green.

And Dash just kept raging against Kwan's hand, shouting stifled "EMBERS" until his face was so red it almost matched his jacket. Finally when it seemed he was too out of breath to do anymore shouting Kwan removed his hand and wiped it on his jeans. He looked at Dash incredulously.

"Dude, I think you should maybe visit the school councilor."

Dash turned his scowl from the sky to his friend, and let it darken.

_-_

Danny practically did the cha-cha on his way back to class. "Ghost defeated: check, parents embarrassing antics avoided: check, a thoroughly won over public," he waved to a hall monitor, who 'eeped', blushed, and ducked into the girl's bathroom, "uh…check I guess." He stuck his head through the wall to Sam's current period class. "Get the girl? Double check." He straightened, and started in the direction of his own class again. "All that's left is homework."

A tall, blurred figure passed through the hallway in front of him. Startled he stopped, and watched as the strange shadow darted between the classes, finally coming to stop in front of a door, and then slipping through it.

Danny looked, then touched his neck and coughed. No burping gasp-like blue emission, no chill, no tingle. Was it his imagination? He shook himself, walking up to the door and reading the lettering. DR. Alfred Showenhower.

Freaky new school councilor, now strange shadowy hallucinations, hm, not déjà vu exactly, but certainly no coincidence.

Danny transformed and slipped inside as careful as possible, making sure to stay invisible and near the ceiling. There was only a single voice, mumbling to itself. Danny noticed that, unlike Mrs. Spectra, Mr. Showenhower kept the room warm, and dark. He hovered there a few minutes, but he couldn't make out any coherent words in the mumbling, and he couldn't see a thing but shadows against shadows.

Just when he was getting frustrated, a knock sounded at the door.

"Mr. Showenhower?" Dash peeked in through the door, blinking against the darkness.

"Come in, come in Mr. Baxter." The voice behind the desk called. Dash walked in and almost tripped over a box. "Oh, do forgive the mess. I've not completely situated myself, so many books, so much to read and enjoy." Dash and Danny both blinked when a desk lamp turned on, flooding eyes, and the room, with a soft yellow light. "Fascinating subject isn't it," a book was closed, and Danny finally could see the counselor as a big chair spun around, "the human conscience."

Danny suddenly had the feeling of displacement. This office didn't look at all like it belonged in the school. It was as if he had suddenly stepped into one of his Vlad's offices. Hard to believe that just beyond the door behind him was the bright, cheerful, and somewhat noisy hallway of Casper High.

"Um, yeah I guess." Dash mumbled. Danny was getting sick of mumbling. "I…I needed to kind of talk to you." He said uncomfortably.

"Yes, I figured you would" Showenhower rested his elbows on the desk and laced his fingers beneath his chin. "Come, sit, and tell me your woes."

Dash took the seat across from the rich brown desk, ramrod spine and shoulders stiff. "I, well it's just that I've always… Well I've admired Danny Phantom for a long time, since well almost since he first started coming around this town, and I've pretty much picked on Fenton since we first met." He began.

"Ah yes, conflicting emotions I see." Mr. Showenhower smiled knowingly. "Now that you've found Mr. Fenton and the hero Danny Phantom is one in the same, you don't quite know how to act, don't know if you should treat Phantom as Fenton or Fenton as Phantom." He raised an eyebrow in question.

"Yes, exactly." Dash affirmed. "I see him, and I just, I get so confused. Usually when I see Fenton around I don't hesitate in wailing on him." He punched his hand. "But lately." He stared down at his connected fist in his palm, curling his opposite fingers around his knuckles. "Lately I still get the urge, like I don't quite remember, or my body doesn't, and I start walking towards him, or I glare at him, like I'm really pissed or something, and then I remember, and stop. Like.." he let his hands relax in his lap. "Like when you live in one place all your life, and then suddenly you move, and some days you still get up thinking "I'm gonna run over to this place or that store or visit this friend, and you take a few steps and then it hits you, you can't, because you don't live where they are anymore." He sighed. "Does that make any sense?"

"Actually, it makes plenty of sense." Mr. Showenhower reclined in his seat. "It's common, especially among those with dramatic changes in their lives such as losing a family member, a loved pet, or yes even moving. We humans are habitual creatures, going about our days in a scheduled pattern even when we don't try, and everything in our environment fits into that set pattern. Should even one thing be changed, it leaves a sense of displacement, or wrongness, and we find ourselves a bit lost." He lowered his arms to the desk and looked at Dash directly. "It sometimes makes us angry and confused, frustrated, even ill tempered and violent; tell me is that how you feel?"

"Well, yeah, but I always feel that way 'bout Fenton." He shrugged. "Rubs me the wrong way, you know? Ever since we met, him and that Foley kid, how they were always so close and always kind of off together, and then Manson came in freshman year and it was just the three of them and just, well, I guess it's…"

"Were you perhaps…envious of him?" Showenhower offered.

Danny jolted, and glanced at Dash, waiting for his response.

"What? No pfft." Dash laughed and Danny relaxed. "That's not it at all. I first started picking on him cause he quit the volleyball team." Dash explained. "My girlfriend loved the game and when he quit our team lost ever since and she was really upset, so I beat him up for her…and well it just went from there." He laughed a bit through his nose. "Bruising him just became kind of a pastime. Whenever he's around I get all agitated and a little overheated and sometimes my brain gets kind of fuzzy. To bring up those stupid movie clichés, yeah it did make me feel better, when I pushed him around I mean."

"Physical exertion is a good outlet." The counselor nodded. "I'm not saying your bullying is right, of course." Danny snorted, and then slapped a hand over his mouth, but neither of the two seemed to have noticed. "But it's true that people often release their frustrations in some kind of activity or another. All that energy you can't get rid of in your sports, well you let it out on your fellow students. And now, now you find your one source of comfort taken from you.

"Many bullies find themselves in such a place, sometimes when their chosen outlet moves or more often when they commit suicide." Dash tensed at the word and Danny scowled at the councilor. "And in this case, when your victim, becomes your hero." He got up. "You found yourself in the precarious position of comic book antagonist, the school bully of everybody's hero, like Spiderman's Flash." He came around and placed a hand on Dash's shoulders. "Do you know what happened to Flash Mr. Baxter?" he asked.

Dash shrugged. "Never been a fan of comics, those are for nerds."

"Yes well, you, as it appears, are much like him, admiring your hero, while simultaneously becoming his alter ego's tormentor." He squeezed Dash's shoulders once more before relinquishing them and turning to his large bookshelf. "You'll have to take a few steps young man, quite a few." He pulled one out and opened it, fingering through pages. "Unlike Flash, you didn't have the chance to develop a friendship with your hero; you just had the whole thing dumped on you." His lips quirked up. "But you can fix that."

Dash stood. "What are you talking about?" he asked, fist clenching. "You're saying I should make friends with Fenton?" he demanded. "After everything I've put him through you think I can actually do that? This isn't some comic you Shrink, this is real life, aren't you supposed to know this?"

Showenhower nodded his head and snapped the book closed. "Yes, I'm supposed to." He placed the book back on the shelf and stepped back, facing away from Dash. "Fascinating, isn't it Mr. Baxter?" He repeated his question from earlier. "The human conscience. You know, all these years of studying, I have yet to understand what in the human mind decides if you move on, or remain in this plain of existence."

"Wha, what?" Dash was lost, he backed up a foot.

"Some say it's a soul, and it just may have been, but your Danny, he throws it so far out of balance. Half ghost is essentially half-dead isn't it? How can he have such powers, how can he even exist?" He turned, his eyes hard, critical. "I've studied ghosts all my life, was forced to as a child by my parents, and now, everything I've learned, everything I believed, is thrown into question by the existence of one anomaly"

"Who the hell are you?" Dash yelled, "What are you talking about? What's Fenton got to do with any of that? I thought we were talking about my problems."

"Oh, we are Mr. Baxter." Showenhower smiled, and Danny felt a cold presence behind his back. "We are."

And then there was nothing. He hadn't had the chance to feel anything but a sudden painful heat, and then the black hardened, and froze. There was no floating, no fight against encroaching night, no traversing through his subconscious. There wasn't really anything.

His mind simply ceased all thought.

Well, almost all…

"_Leave him." _

"_why…finish…im off."_

"_Pain…psychological…strain…Ember…"_

"…_control…"_

"_Fenton!"_

"_Shut....oh for the lo….gag him."_

"_Fenton…Fenton…er..Fenton…Mr. Fenton hear..."_

"_Mr. Fenton_?" A cold cloth on his forehead and neck, water dribbling on his face, he blinked up. "Mr. Fenton can you hear me?" It was the nurse and Mr. Lancer.

"Sweetie can you tell me your name?" The nurse asked.

He blinked at her, and then answered. "Danny."

"And your last name?"

"Fenton."

"Good." She rewet the cold cloth; it was like a baby-wipe kind of napkin, and swabbed at his forehead. "What's your birthday?"

He told her.

"Can you remember where you are?"

"Um…the nurses office?" He glanced around, no, he wasn't there. "No wait…I'm…I'm in the counselors…" And then he remembered.

Mr. Lancer had to retrain him when he bolted up, shouting half sentences. "Dash! Where's Dash? Showenhower! Did he hurt..?! Where's Dash?" Danny struggled against Lancer, before kicking the teacher off him to several feet away, he didn't even remember transforming, and bolting out of the office.

He skidded on the linoleum, his legs wobbling and moving in all kinds of directions, he hit the wall and then pushed off, keeping moving, shouting, he didn't even know what he was saying.

He saw Ishiyama with a terrified look, then watched as a teacher pulled the fire alarm and heard a ghost alarm go off not too far behind it.

Kids scattered out of his way, he didn't register their faces, but heard screams of fright. He didn't see a ghost anywhere, so didn't understand what it was all about, but he had to find Showenhower. Had to get Dash. Had to figure out what they were planning. Whoever they were.

"DASH?!" He screamed as he burst through the front doors, seeing a huge crowd out front he charged into them, intent on leaving the school grounds.

"Danny Phantom! Evil! We Love you! Freak! DEMON! Will you sign my THE POWER OF CRIST COMPELLS YOU!!!!!"

He was hit with something, something heavy, and hard, and right on the back of his head. And suddenly he was on the ground and there was screams and stomping and when he looked up he saw someone was standing, no hovering above him.

Ember smiled, fingers gliding across strings, the world turned pink and then the stomping feet were moving from concrete, to him.

Pain.

Then darkness, once again his mind was gone.

And then he was there again, as smoothly, as quickly, as a blink.

Danny's welcome back to earth party consisted of a pounding headache, pain EVERYWHERE, lots and lots of noise, and an overwhelming darkness. He was blindfolded, and strapped down, and the world of night and clamor were certainly not helping his headache.

"Danny." He heard a voice ask softly and he opened his eyes, and wow, there was the world. True, his eyes were only slits, and he had to close them immediately after because of the brightness and because they were just so damn heavy, but at least he wasn't blindfolded as he originally thought. With a deep, painful breath he tried again, and this time was able to make out the world around him, thankfully not made of eternal night. It lasted all of three seconds.

"Hey dude, how you feel?" He opened his eyes again to see one of his 'bodyguards', the other two were on the other side of his bed, taking turns at watching him, and glaring at the group huddled at the entrance to the nurses office.

Hey, he knew he was in the nurse's office! Yay for good memory, now if he could only remember why he was here. Time had touched his mind, snatched several hours from him by the look of the clock. Whatever had happened to him, it had knocked him out good, and left him with one hell of a hangover.

"Ember escaped." One said. "Your parents are searching for her. We haven't told them you're hurt yet, it would distract them."

The second guard, yeah Danny figured he'd just call them One, Two, and Three until he could remember their names, picked up the explanation. "She appeared at your school, we assume for a rematch, and that's when you came outside. She…she took control of the crowd."

"Control…" Danny said aloud, wondering why that word hammered at his abused mind.

Guard number Three didn't say anything, and when he glanced at Danny he gave off the feeling of…distraction.

A commotion at the door explained why.

"GIW, everyone freeze!" A group of large men in pure white uniforms, outshone only by their impeccably polished weapons, crowded into the room, shoving aside principal, nurse, teachers, and various other onlookers. The third bodyguard swung his arm out in front of the two others as they stood, ready to defend him. They stared at him, Danny as well, and he pulled open his leather jacket to reveal…a GIW badge.

He saluted to what Danny assumed was the boss, then he and two others escorted his guards out into the hallway.

Danny stared wide eyed at the bulky figures, almost trembling beneath the thin sheets of the nurse's office bed. The first three moved quickly, scrambling around the room in quick, controlled steps and checking everything from the windows and vents to beneath the beds and even unplugging the phone.

When that was done they nodded to each other, then turned to nod to the other two still in the doorway, then moved to stand on either side of his bed, their large, shiny weapons ready in their hands.

Principal Ishiyama looked positively furious, but held her tongue as the agents did their job. Lancer, however, was far from quiet. He could be heard just outside, speaking with whomever it was that had come with the goons.

"Um.." Danny began, sitting up with some difficulty. "So, what brings you guys here?" He asked.

He recognized the two on either side of him as the ones always after him; though the one at the foot of the bed was unfamiliar, he was probably at the same rank. None of them answered right away, then the darker of the two spoke hushed, as if he wasn't supposed to say anything.

"We're here to get you out." He explained. "The government has deemed your presence here too dangerous."

"Wah?" Danny jolted, ready to screech in his defense, but a firm hand pushed him back to the bed, he shot a glance at the second agent, expecting a gun in his face for his sudden movements. Instead he saw a strange concerned expression.

"This limited environment has too many openings, too easy for you to be attacked." He elaborated, then shooting a glare at the principal, "and not just from ghosts."

Danny's head felt smothered. He griped his brow with one hand as he tried to process this new development. The Guys in White, here, at his school, helping him? And Dash, was Dash okay? Was he hurt, what did Showenhower want with an ordinary human teenager?

"We'll get Showenhower." The three agents said in unison, then looked at each other. Danny didn't know if he had asked the question out loud, or if maybe all four of them were perhaps thinking along the same lines, but the roaring sound, coming from just beneath his ears, was swooping in fast and his eyes were watering from the strain of watching them.

"Your little friend is going to be fine." The unfamiliar one assured, patting his foot.

"He's not my…eah." And he was back in the darkness.

-

Some things have come up at home that is preventing me from finishing the chapter at this time. I cut this off here because it's the end of the section I'm really pleased with. Everything else past this is rather sloppy and rigid. I've been sending it to different betas but I never get anything back from them, and its ticking me off. I miss my old editors, but they're busy at the moment.

Anyway, sorry for the enormous lack of information here, I'm sure some of you can guess what's going to happen, but I have about 20 more pages of this flashback to finish modifying and adjusting before we get back on track, and trust me when I say, when we do get back on track it's gonna be a hell of a ride.

At the rate I'm going I'll place the end at about five more chapters, plus epilogue. SO let's say next summer, unless I find this sudden urge to write nonstop for weeks on end. (Which sometimes happens)

In the First Episode, when Sam and Tucker brought Danny up to his room unconscious, we see a volleyball on the floor next to the trunk by the foot of his bed. I kind of took that and ran.


	9. Just a littleumlonger

Notice how there are so many really long fanfictions out there that never get finished and the readers are left with their own imaginative wanderings to fill in the space? Well  
I'm sorry to say that photo opportunities will...

NOT be added to that list.

I'm back, and yes there will be updates. Soon. Seriously the whole thing is finished. It's just over in Italy, being held captive by Kola. See I kind of promised her a D. gray-man fic a year ago and have been putting it off. I know, _shocker__**.**_ So she won't send me my notes until I finish it. Which should be soon, as I have it mostly done, I just need to fill it in a bit. It just has... Soooooo much research required. Not her fault, she only wanted a crime drama, I'm the one that made it _**awesome**_.

So if you like DGM, check it out.

Or if you've never even heard of the Manga/Anime but like sexy foul mouthed Asian detectives and suave, vengeful albino English gentlemen, it's an AU. So you don't need to know the original story. Yay!

In return for your absolute fantastic patience for the next chapter here's a choppy little snippet of dialogue from later in the story. Enjoy it.

I Hope…

;D

"If we bicker like this now, what's it gonna be like when were old?" 

"Hopefully it'll have a lot less throwing things and a lot more wrinkly sex." 

"Ew, why the hell would you put that in my head?" 

"Because I'm hoping to have gotten a lot of practice by then." 

"Jeeze we're such guys. And teenagers. Teenage guys, thinking about sex in a hospital bed." 

"It's still a bed, and your still in a tie on gown, but since your seriously injured and frighteningly underweight I think that kiss is all we'll do. Everything else can wait to be planned." 

"Hmm." Danny snuggled himself against Dash. "Glad Vlad sprung for the room, though wish the beds got bigger." 

"Then that'd give you room to scoot away and I want you right where you are." 

"Hmmn," Danny repeated, and almost purred when Dash kissed his head." I love you, you're an asshole and an idiot and a pain but I love you. Don't know why though, I should know why, shouldn't I?" 

"Fenton, for the love of all that is living close your eyes and shut up." 

Danny did just that, than he bit his lip and struggled to stay still. 

"I can feel you smiling," 

"I'm trying not to." 

"You're bad at it." 

"I know, but it's funny." 

With a groan Dash asked," what is it?" 

"Hehn, if we have sex..." 

"I'm changing what I said earlier, if there's an 'if' anywhere near 'sex' I don't love you anymore." 

"Ha ha. Fine, when we have sex. Which will no doubt be soon since your hand is rubbing my hip, do we like what flip a coin?" 

"What for?" 

"For who's gonna be the girl."


End file.
